NEW DELHI, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- As incidents of cow vigilantism rise in India, the country's Supreme Court Friday made it clear that all state governments are obliged to give compensation to the victims of cattle protectors.
According to official statistics, nearly a dozen people have been killed in attacks by cow protectors since Prime Minister Narendra Modi's nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power. Targets are often picked simply based on rumours and some have been attacked for even transporting cows for milk.
Hearing a bunch of petitions filed against rising cow vigilantism in India, a three-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, ruled: "Victims are to be compensated. It is obligatory on the part of the state to compensate the victim of crime."
The court also said that if any state does not have a compensation scheme for victims of cow protectors, it should formulate one under the Criminal Procedure Code.
"Under the Code of Criminal Procedure, the state is under obligation to have a scheme for victim compensation and if they don't have then they should have one," the judges said, giving no option to disobey the court's order on any pretext.
The top court also asked all the state governments to file a compliance report by October-end by appointing a nodal officer to prevent the rising incidents of cow vigilantism and to act against cow vigilantes.
