• Ending vigilantism and violence by cow protection groups or gau rakshaks is a ‘State subject’ and the Centre has no role to play though it condemns all forms of vigilantism, the government told Supreme Court.
• Neither the Centre nor have States like Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra filed any written response to the court’s repeated orders to them do so in a bunch of petitions led by Shehzeen Poonawalla for criminal action against cow vigilante groups whose recent rampages and lynchings have seen communal tensions rise in the country.
• The petitions has also sought a direction to the Central and State governments to pull down all the videos of violence uploaded by cow vigilante groups from social media sites.

State & Central Responses:

• The Uttar Pradesh counsel merely stated the fact that the State has not filed its response.
• The Gujarat counsel said there was one such incident of violence involving gau rakshaks and the persons allegedly responsible for it have been arrested.
• The Solicitor General, speaking for the central government, asked the court to record in its order that “the Centre does not support any kind of vigilantism against the law by any private persons”. 

Source:TH