In Mota Khatkivad, a locality with a mixed population of Muslims and Hindus and many such as the Solankis involved traditionally in butchery (giving the area its name), neighbours turn down queries with, “We do not know anything”. The family refuses to talk, saying it “fears the consequences”.
A local who knows the family says the uncle and the brothers live together. While Kasim is unmarried, Akram has a wife and four children. “The family is in shock,” he says. “A person gets a death sentence or life imprisonment for killing a human being… Here, three people have been sentenced to life for killing a calf of a cow.”
He adds: “The family’s three main earning members are in jail now. I do not know how they will raise the Rs 18 lakh for the fine, or go about appealing against the conviction.”
The Gujarat Animal Preservation Act prohibits cow slaughter and sale of cow meat in the state. In 2017, the BJP government amended the Act and increased the maximum punishment for cow slaughter from seven years to life imprisonment.
Akram was on bail in an earlier case under the Act, in which he had been sentenced to three years’ rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 5,000, when held in this one. As per charges in this case, on November 6, 2023, police, acting on a tip-off about cow slaughter and sale of beef, raided the Solanki residence and allegedly recovered beef, remains of a slaughtered calf and equipment used for slaughtering an animal.
Subsequently, a veterinary doctor and a forensic test confirmed the recovered meat to be that of a cow.
Apart from provisions of the Gujarat Animal Preservation Act, the Amreli Sessions Court that gave the Solankis life also convicted them for “destroying any object held sacred by any class of persons with the intention of thereby insulting the religion of any class of persons” and for “mischief by killing or maiming cattle of any value”. They were fined Rs 6.08 lakh each, with the court ordering that they would have to serve more time if they failed to pay.
This story was originally published in indianexpress.com. Read the full story here.