Gau rakshaks are running their own shops, they make me angry: PM Narendra Modi

Taking strong exception to atrocities on Dalits in Gujarat's Una in the name of cow protection, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said some people have opened shops in the name of cow protection, which makes him very angry.

"I am very much angry on those who have opened their occupation in the name of 'Gau Raksha' (cow protection). There are many 'Gau Rakshaks' (cow protectors). They protect cows to hide their illegal occupations. Cows mostly die of eating plastic bags and these gau rakshaks should urge people not to throw plastics on the roads. This will be a big sewa," said the Prime Minister, who was addressing the concluding session of the Town Hall meeting organised at Indira Gandhi Stadium Complex here on Saturday to mark the second anniversary of MyGov.in.

Prime Minister Modi further said, "We have so much diversity to attract people, thus we need to connect people to our heritage and attract tourism. Tourism will boost our economy. We should try and drive our economy. If we achieve 8% growth rate for 30 years then we will be at the top. Economic development should be constant and it shouldn't go up and down. This is necessary for us to be at the top."

The Prime Minister's comments come in the aftermath of the fallout of the Una incident in which Dalits were flogged for skinning a dead cow by gau rakshaks.

The incident had to led massive protests by Dalits with many of them refusing to skin dead cow. Several Dalit youth tried to commit suicide during theprotests by Dalit community members against the thrashing of Dalit youths of Mota Samadhiyala village in Gir Somnath district on July 11, when they were skinning a dead cow

The incident resulted in widespread agitation by Dalits following which several political leaders, including Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi and Aam Aadmi Party's national convener Arvind Kejriwal, had met the victims at their village and Rajkot hospital.