Judges order Delhi to get sacred cows off the street

They may be revered by India's Hindus, but the thousands of cows that roam the streets of Delhi have now been targeted by exasperated judges, who have condemned the city council for allowing the city's bovine population to spiral out of control.

Hitting one can land a driver in jail for a year, but the cows' erratic behaviour can pose a more immediate road hazard. Last week the High Court in Delhi ordered the city authorities to pay a widow £2,500 compensation after her husband was thrown from his motorbike and killed while swerving to avoid one of the animals.

The High Court laid the blame for the scale of the problem on the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, accusing it of being 'careless and negligent' in its duty to clear the streets and ordering it to redouble its efforts.



Although the capital's cow catchers have rounded up about 19,000 strays in the past year, more are arriving every day, brought in by agricultural workers who come to the city looking for work. They find a ready market for their milk at the estimated 2,300 illegal dairies in the city.

While the courts take a dim view of what one Indian paper dubbed the 'moo menace', cows retain a special place in Hindu culture. In the Sewa Nagar area of south Delhi last week several were wandering freely on a road in a small, rubbish-strewn valley where their owners live in ramshackle shelters.

While traffic swerved to avoid a collision and drivers hooted their horns, a motorcyclist pulled up next to the central reservation, rummaged in his jacket, pulled out a bag of vegetable peelings and strewed them in front of a large white cow on the opposite side of the road.