Muslim residents of Mewat fear gaurakshaks even more following their call to apply for gun licenses
The call to apply for gun licences in bulk appeared on multiple WhatsApp groups of cow vigilantes across the region after the attack on Daya Ram, a resident of Bisaru village, allegedly by cattle smugglers
Nasir’s wife and children sit at their home in Fatehpur at Rajasthan
| Photo Credit: Shashi Shekhar Kashyap
In the Mewat region, traversing the Mumbai-Delhi highway, Muslim residents have feared reaching the villages dotting the border of Haryana and Rajasthan. Their fears, however, rose manifold after local gaurakshaks or ‘cow vigilante’ leaders gave a call to their associates to apply for gun licences.
The call to apply for gun licences in bulk appeared on multiple WhatsApp groups of cow vigilantes across the region after Daya Ram, a resident of Mewat’s Bisaru village, was allegedly attacked by cattle smugglers in the night.
The Muslim community has allegedly lost several young and middle-aged men to attacks by gaurakshaks in the region, spiking fears. In Rajasthan’s Ghatmeeka village that borders Haryana, Mohammed Ali, 27, and along with this two brothers, has quit dairy farming altogether. “Since Junaid and Nasir’s death last year, we have quit our family business of dairy farming and we started working as drivers,” he said sombrely.
While many in several villages of Mewat appear to have followed Mr. Ali’s footsteps by moving to other professions, some have continued to navigate risky paths in dairy farming.
Md. Abdul (name changed to maintain anonymity), a resident of of Nuh, said that in his village and several other villages, the part of their homes that housed cattle now has only buffaloes. “Earlier, we used to keep both buffaloes and cow for dairy farming, but now, who will risk bringing a cow from anywhere?” Mr. Abdul said.
The 57-year-old man and his two sons had briefly stopped cattle rearing after the lynching in 2017 of Pehlu Khan, who was transporting cows to Nuh from Alwar district. A resident of the same village, Mr. Abdul felt more afraid for his sons, since they would go to animal fairs in Rajasthan to legally buy cows and buffaloes for their dairy farming business.
“For months, I did not allow my two sons to go to the fair to make purchases, and made ends meet with great difficulty by practising the trade in and around our village. However, as our means dried up, we started to buy buffaloes from neighbouring villages and continued our trade,” Mr. Abdul said.
This was expensive, he said. “If a buffalo costs close to ₹90,000 in Rajasthan’s pashu mela (cattle fair), it costs close to ₹1.5 lacs when brought from Haryana,” Mr. Abdul said.
While, cow vigilantes allegedly frequent the Delhi-Mumbai highway and various routes from Rajasthan to Haryana to harass Muslim men, some residents of Mewat have found a different route to protect themselves and their trade even when they are not carrying cattle.
Hamid Khan, a resident of Nuh, said that while the gaurakshaks were after Muslim men, they had no qualms in letting Hindu men pass with vehicles full of cattle, which had allowed many like him to buy cattle.
“The Hindu men selling animals in pashu melas in Rajasthan were incurring great losses with the increased attacks of gaurakshaks on Muslim men, so they proposed that we pay an additional cost for them to deliver the cows and buffaloes to our villages, straight from the fairs,” Mr. Khan said.
For the 32-year-old and many like him, paying an additional cost of up to ₹5,000 to Hindu men to transport cattle legally purchased from cattle fairs in Rajasthan’s Nangar helps them continue their trade while trying to protect themselves.
Standing next to Mr. Khan, his brother Parvez Khan asked why the cow vigilantes armed with firearms and sticks did not run after their Hindu brethren when the latter transported cattle, and lynched innocent Muslims even when they did not.
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