Tension in Kotkapura over stray cattle

Tribune News Service

Kotkapura, March 3

Tension gripped Kotkapura town this evening when farmers of two villages gheraoed and damaged two vehicles of the Bathinda police. The policemen in these vehicles were escorting five trucks, ferrying over 500 stray animals from Bathinda to Bir Sikhanwala village of Faridkot.

While farmers of the Kotkapura area alleged that the police were giving protection to illegal shifting of stray cattle from Bathinda to Kotkapura, the police claimed that the shifting of the stray animals was under an agreement between the Bathinda Municipal Corporation (MC) and a private gaushala in Kotkapura.

While a few farmers apprehended that the stray cattle might be let loose in their areas and destroy their crop, members of some voluntary organisations found that many malnourished and dehydrated animals, badly stuffed in the trucks, died on the way from Bathinda to Kotkapura.

When farmers of adjoining villages also started gathering in Kotkapura, senior police officers, including Bathinda DIG Aman Singh Chahal, rushed to the spot to control the situation. The Bathinda police was under attack for escorting an alleged illegal act.

Bathinda SSP Swapan Sharma said the police were not at fault as the escort to the trucks was provided on the request of the Bathinda MC.

The SSP said according to the MoU between the Bathinda MC and the gaushala in Kotkapura, the Bathinda MC was to pay a monthly maintenance charge to the gaushala for the upkeep of these stray animals.

However, the protesters alleged that these stray animals were being let loose and they would have destroyed their crop. “This is not the first time that stray animals were being shifted illegally from Bathinda to Faridkot,” alleged Gurdeep Singh Sekhon, one of the protesters.