Click to play videoWatford (UK): The Hare Krishna temple on the outskirts of London is mourning the loss of one of its beloved members – 13-year-old blue jersey cow, Gangotri.
A crippling injury last year had left her unable to walk and her muscles had weakened. She was being nursed round-the-clock under the 'cow protection project' of the temple that allows cows and bulls to die naturally.
The authorities, however, felt otherwise. On Thursday, a team from Britain's animal rights group, Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, or RSPCA, along with the police, put Gangotri down.
“This has deep ramifications. What this judgement on our cow means is that the RSPCA will prosecute you if you care, and tend to your animal. It is saying that if there is no medical cure, then you have to kill it,” says farm manager Shyam Sundar.
Agrres President of Bhaktivedanta Manor, Gauri Das, “We feel betrayed. The day before they slaughtered our cow, they came to our temple and had a dialogue. We told them they had to understand the sensitivity of killing a cow at a temple. We were assured we would be given time for legal recourse.”
The RSPCA, on the other hand, claims it had done everything to take account of religious sensitivities. In a statement it says “the animal was in constant pain and was suffering from infected sores, her limbs had become wasted and her breathing difficult”.
Gangotri's death comes five months after Shambho, a temple bull in Wales, was slaughtered on account of bovine tuberculosis despite protests and a failed legal challenge.
There is a sense amongst the Hindu community now that its time to re-look at some of the old laws.
“The social, cultural make-up has changed. Thirty-five per cent Hindus feel its time for the law to change,” says Das.
So while the government says law has to reign, Hindu community feels perhaps its time to change the law itself.
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