Leaders who never stop professing their love for cows did not lift a finger on Saturday night when 45 of them died at Sawai near Etmasdpur of cold and hunger. On the contrary, while the local residents gathered food to save the remaining cattle, a Hindu Jagran Manch leader shot a letter to The Indian Express saying the animals had died of a ‘‘terrorist act’’.According to villagers, some cowherds of Shivpur in MP travelling with around 500 cows stopped here for the night. Most of the animals were not in a condition to walk. The continuous rain is believed to have proved the last straw and about 45 animals died of cold and hunger.When the Sawai villagers came to know about this, they rushed to the site with straw and grass. They also opened the makeshift shelters nearby for the cowherds to keep the animals for the night.But soon as the news of the deaths came out the next day, leaders rushed in to make political hay. A senior member of the Hindu Jagran Manch, who evidently had not even visited the village, claimed these were the result of a ‘‘terrorist act’’. Several other similar statements were received by local dailies condemning the “killers” of the cows.Incidentally, doctors K.G. Singh and Neeraj Shukla, who performed the post-mortem on the cows, have confirmed that the deaths were caused by cold, accentuated by the weakened body constitution of the cows.
