Bharatiya Janata Party leader and former member of Rajasthan Legislative Assembly Gyan Dev Ahuja courted controversy once again with his remarks as he suggested that the landslides in Wayanad occurred due to the cow slaughter practices in Kerala. The BJP leader claimed that incidents such as these will continue to take place wherever cows are slaughtered.
Torrential rains in Kerala's Wayanad triggered massive landslides in Mundakai, Churalamala, and Meppadi in the district. As of Saturday, the death toll in the tragedy stands at 358, while rescuers continue to undertake search operations, looking for survivors, who might be waiting for help, trapped under debris.
Ahuja asserted that the landslides were a direct consequence of cow slaughter in the state, adding that even though cloudbursts and landslides also occur in the states of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, the loss of life is not of the magnitude that occurred in Wayanad.
"Since 2018, we have observed a pattern where areas involved in cow slaughter face such tragic incidents," Ahuja stated. "If cow slaughter does not stop, similar tragedies will continue to occur in Kerala," India Today quoted him as saying.
Previous Rows Over Ahuja's Remarks On Cow Slaughter
This is not the first time that the former BJP MLA has sparked a row with his comments related to cow slaughter. In December 2017, Ahuja had warned that if anyone induged in cow smuggling or cow slaughtering, he would be thrashed to death.
His warning had come after a cow smuggling incident in Alwar district, Rajasthan, following which a man, suspected to be a cow smuggler, was beaten by locals. However, Ahuja had claimed that the man was injured after the vehicle he was smuggling cows in, overturned, media reports noted.
"Mera to sidha sidha kehna hai ki gau taskari karoge ya gau kashi karoge to yun hi maare jaoge (I say this clearly: if you smuggle or slaughter cows, you will be killed)," he had told reporters.
Following this, in another controversy that erupted in August 2022, Ahuja was slapped with an FIR for a video, wherein he was heard saying that he caught five men killed over cow smuggling.
In the video, he could be heard telling a person sitting next to him, “Panditji, ab tak toh paanch humne maare hain, Lalwandi mein maara, chahe Behror mein maara, chahe (unclear) mein maara, ab tak toh paanch hum ne maare hain. Is area mein pehli baar hua hai ke unhone maara hai (Panditji, we have killed five so far, be it in Lalwandi, be it Behror… It has happened for the first time in this area that they have killed someone).”
The BJP's Alwar unit had distanced itself from his comments, saying that they were his personal views. Ahuja later defended his remarks saying that he did not say killed but he had said that the five men, who were caught smuggling cows, were beaten up by our workers.