Kolkata:
Protests against Beef ban in India took a new turn after first-of-its-kind initiative 'a cow selfie' gained momentum on Tuesday.
In Hinduism, cows are considered sacred and are often referred to as “mother cow” but the recent months witnessed a sharp protests against cow slaughter in the country.
Thus, this new initiative was taken up by a Kolkata-based trust that asked people to take a selfie with a cow and post it on social networking sites.
The idea behind the novel concept was to spread the message of cow preservation and protesting it’s slaughter, said 'Go Seva Parivar' which launched the initiative soon after Diwali.
According to the group, the initiative has attracted over a thousand selfies from across the country under the hashtag ‘#selfiewithgomata’ on Facebook, Whatsapp and Twitter.
On Sunday, to promote the campaign, a selfie competition was held at Bidhan Shishu Udyan in Kolkata where they worshiped the animal and gave awards to the best selfies.
Notably, the initiative comes at a time when the country has seen violent protests, and even bloodshed, over ban on cow slaughter.
Three men in UP, Himachal Pradesh and Assam were allegedly lynched for killing a cow spurring to national debates in the entire country.
Significantly, judiciary has banned Cow meat in 20 states out of the total 29 states and seven union territories.
Meanwhile, beef is still legal in West Bengal thus inviting sharp protests by members of the right wing political parties; this time however, a peaceful campaign was largely applauded.
In another news, Yahoo also informed that the 'cow' pipped all other contenders in 2015 to emerge as the personality of the year in India.
