The Ahmedabad chapter of a well-known gau rakshak samiti Friday blamed the Shiv Sena for the Una incident in which seven members of a Dalit family were allegedly beaten up for skinning a dead cow. The city branch of Akhil Bhartiya Sarvdaliya Gauraksha Maha Abhiyan Samiti Kisan Mandal, which has its head office in New Delhi, urged the Central government to declare cow as “rashtriya mata”. At a press conference in Ahmedabad, its national president B K Desai appealed to the state government to ensure an impartial probe into the incident. “We demand cows to be declared as rashtriya mata - not pashu or janwar, but mata,” Desai said. Desai said that he had, on behalf of the organisation, written to the state government on Wednesday, naming Shiv Sena behind the atrocity on Dalits. “There is no involvement of any gau rakshak in the entire incident. Blaming gau rakshaks for the incident is an attempt to disgrace us. The entire incident is a planned move by the local Shiv Sena leaders. There was not a single member of gau rakshak groups who thrashed Dalits. It is an attempt to incite infighting between Gujarat government, gau rakshak and Dalits,” Desai said.
