A herd of cows and bulls ambles through Ramlila Ground in Delhi’s Narela, picking through garbage and greenery for something to eat. Hawkers set up stalls for vegetable and fruit, motorists trundle past, and further down the road leading to Pocket 13, more cattle congregate at a crossing where a group of people feed them fodder.
It’s a picture of urban Indian contentment except that at this a fortnight ago, a 53-year-old man was flung four feet into the air by a raging bull. Mohammad Sanullah, a fruit vendor, sustained severe head injuries shortly after sunrise on March 16. He was taken to Satyawadi Raja Harish Chandra hospital but died later that day. His medical report simply stated “alleged history of attack by a bull on the roadside”.
As for the bull, it faded into the throng of 80,000-odd stray cows and bulls that roam the national capital’s streets. Locals said the animal is still at large. The cattle at the ground were chased away by locals but returned shortly after Sanullah was taken away; some say they never really left.
“This is nothing new,” said Seeta Devi, who lives near the ground. “The cattle roam around here from morning till evening. This attack is just one in a long line of incidents. It’s becoming routine.”
“We didn’t spot any vehicle from the Municipal Corporation of Delhi to take the bull away,” said Rinku, who runs a paan stall near the ground. “The bull is probably still mingling with other strays.”
The MCD is responsible for rounding up stray cattle and transporting them to one of Delhi’s four government-supported cow shelters. The corporation was diligent in catching these animals just before the G20 Summit in 2023, but the cows are now back on the streets with nowhere to go.
Compounding the horrors of Sanullah’s death is that one of the four cow shelters is just 20 minutes from where he was attacked. The Gopal Gau Sadan is already over capacity – it can accommodate 3,270 cattle but currently has 4,000.
Suresh, a worker at the Gopal Gau Sadan, said he had no idea if the attacking bull in question was brought to the shelter. As he quite reasonably pointed out, “How will we know which cattle is coming from where?”
So, between air pollution and women’s safety and crumbling civic infrastructure, Delhi’s beleaguered citizens now have to contend with a bovine population that’s taking over their streets. Between January 2023 and February 2025, the Delhi police reportedly received 25,593 phone calls related to stray cows on the roads.
One of the government’s efforts is to throw money at the problem. As of last year, the budgetary outlay for gaushalas in Delhi for 2024-25 was Rs 1,400 lakh – similar to allocations for the previous year. This was presented on March 4, 2024 by Atishi, then Delhi’s finance minister.
This week, Rekha Gupta, Delhi’s new chief minister, presented the FY26 budget which totals Rs 1 lakh crore. One of the highlights includes the allocation of Rs 40 crore to establish a ‘model gaushala’ in Ghumanhera village, equipped with modern facilities for cow protection, milk production, and veterinary care.
Gupta herself came face to face with Delhi’s stray cattle issue on Wednesday, when her convoy was stopped for nearly 15 minutes on the Haiderpur flyover when cows strayed onto the road. Authorities later said action would be taken against “illegal dairy owners” in the area and that police cases would be filed.
#WATCH | Shalimar Bagh: Delhi CM Rekha Gupta instructed the concerned authorities to find proper shelter for stray cattle found on Haiderpur flyover.
— ANI (@ANI) March 26, 2025
(Source - Delhi CMO) pic.twitter.com/CMMpmV9A3E
Locals, meanwhile, are concerned for their safety.
On March 8, 67-year-old Ashok Kumar was attacked by a bull in Delhi’s Alipur, just a few kilometres from where Sanullah was killed. Kumar died from his injuries. The police said the same bull attacked a 60-year-old soon afterward but the man “did not sustain any major injury”.
Too many Delhi residents have similar stories. In August last year, a 75-year-old man was killed in Rohini after a stray cow charged at him during his usual evening walk. Six months before that, a 42-year-old man was dropping his son at the school bus stop when he was attacked and trampled by a bull in Khanpur. He died from his injuries.
In Narela, 40-year-old Deepak Pahwa, who is employed by the MCD as a gardener, was severely wounded by a bull last September. He was riding home from work when a stray bull struck him with such force that he was thrown from his motorbike.
Pahwa suffered severe head injuries and was rushed to the hospital, where he spent 20 days in the ICU. Pointing at the scar on his forehead, he said, “It’s been a painful reminder every day.” His wife Pinki added, “We knew the bull must have come from around here. We didn’t want to involve the police – it’s easier just to let it be.”
Yet feeding troughs – makeshift containers made of cement – have appeared along the pavements of some roads in Narela, reportedly installed by local residents. At one of the troughs near Ramlila Ground, two people tossed green fodder into it for the stray cattle – their act of charity for the day. One of them is Ritu Kumari, who works at a fodder shop and who considers feeding stray cattle her act of charity for the day.
“We do this every day,” she said. “It’s a good deed. People come, they feed cows, donate and feel like they’re doing something good.”
This is, after all, a time when the cow has become a political and communal flashpoint across India. Residents told Newslaundry they’re sometimes “scared” to see cows on the road because they’re often fed by locals; cows sometimes attack passersby carrying polythene bags because the cattle assume they contain food.
Govt shelters plagued with ‘debt’
While it’s difficult to measure the scale of this cattle menace, it seems unlikely that just four government-run cow shelters can help. (There are several others run by NGOs and other private groups, but there’s little information available on their total numbers.)
The four government shelters – Shri Krishna Gaushala in Bawana, Manav Gau Sadan in Rewla Khanpur, Dabar Hare Krishna Gaushala in Najafgarh, and Gopal Gau Sadan in Harewali – are funded by the MCD and Delhi government, and run by individual NGOs. The four shelters can house a total of nearly 19,838 animals, but there’s a curious mismatch between capacity and actual animals.
Manav Gau Sadan houses 2,500 animals against its capacity of 3,488 and Dabar Hare Krishna Gaushala houses 4,500 against its capacity of 5,232. Meanwhile, Shri Krishna Gaushala currently holds 8,500 cattle while its capacity is 7,848. The Harewali shelter houses 4,000 though it’s only supposed to hold 3,270.
Shelters take in cattle that are dropped off by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi. Satish, who works at Dabar Hare Krishna Gaushala, said employees only occasionally go out themselves to rescue cattle when they get phone calls. “Sometimes NGOs who work to protect cows also call us to rescue strays,” he said.
When this reporter visited Gopal Gau Sadan, it was clean and spacious, with large open-air structures sheltering cows of different breeds, sizes and colours. A Krishna statue stood at the entrance. Similarly, the Shri Krishna Gaushala in Bawana was a sprawling and seemingly humane space, with cows sorted into different sections based on age, ailment and other specific requirements.
But there’s a massive financial crunch. The administrators at the four shelters told Newslaundry that the monetary assistance planned by the Delhi government and MCD works out to about Rs 20 per day per cow. This isn’t enough, they alleged, since the upkeep of each animal “ranges between Rs 120 and Rs 150” per day.
As such, all four shelters rely on donations and borrowings – and all four told Newslaundry they’ve accumulated “ debts” because of “irregular” payments from the MCD and Delhi government.
Satish of Dabar Hare Krishna Gaushala said: “We get fodder to feed the cattle on loan from farmers. We then pay them when we get money.” Sunil, an employee of Manav Gau Sadan, said his shelter owes “Rs 10 crore in debt, including to the people we buy fodder from”.
Arun Gautam, who manages the Shri Krishna Gaushala, said the MCD had owed “Rs 35 crore” to his shelter since 2017, while the Delhi government “owes Rs 9 crore” since 2023. Run by nearly 300 workers, the shelter largely depends on donations which are often not enough, making it difficult to take care of the animals, he said.
“We are currently Rs 10 crore in debt,” Gautam said. “We manage somehow.”
Satish from Dabar Hare Krishna said the MCD and Delhi government together “owe Rs 9 crore in total”, while Sunil from Manav Gau Sadan said the MCD “owes Rs 4 crore” and Delhi government “Rs 2.5 crore”.
When contacted for response, an MCD official, who did not want to be named, passed the blame to the Delhi government which he said was responsible for “functioning and maintenance” of these cow shelters. But when specifically asked about dues from the MCD, he said, “I don’t know who is in charge of that. You will have to figure it out.”
Visits and calls to the MCD office did not yield this information. The Delhi government’s animal husbandry department also did not respond to requests for comment. Newslaundry sent questionnaires to both the MCD and the Delhi government; this report will be updated if they respond.
Vasanthi Kumar, cofounder of an animal welfare NGO called Stray Relief and Animal Welfare, or STRAW, told Newslaundry there’s an urgent need for more shelters “so as to make sure these animals are not only inside shelters but are also safe”.
“The numbers are more than the resources available. The gaushalas are overfilled,” she said. “There’s not enough space.”
Where are these cows coming from?
Locals said there are two kinds of cattle on the roads – those belonging to dairy farmers and others that reside permanently on the streets.
Sunayana Sibal, an animal welfare activist and managing director of Varaha Impact Foundation, explained that dairy farmers “abandon” the cattle on the streets during non-milking hours every day.
“They are left to road the streets and cause traffic snarls, as well as grave nuisance to the public,” she said. “Thus at the very core of the issue of stray cattle is the challenge operated by illegally-operating dairies. Straying of cattle is but a symptom of a glaring, larger issue which most of us choose to sideline.”
Delhi does have an official policy to regulate cattle ownership. Titled the Cattle Dairy License Policy, the policy was adopted in 1957 and outlines the regulatory framework for establishing and operating dairy businesses, including licensing requirements, compliance standards, and environmental guidelines. It aims to ensure hygiene, animal welfare, and sustainable practices in the dairy industry.
But the stray cattle menace is exacerbated by milk dairies, according to those in work in this field.
“Dairy owners milk their cows in the morning and then abandon them until the evening when they return to their calves,” explained Parth Kumar, founder at Care 4 Cows, a Delhi NGO that rehabilitates stray cattle. “These cows roam freely all day and then accidents become inevitable.”
Sibal said Delhi has “thousands of unlicensed dairies operating in plain sight”.
“Such operations are often carried out from residential premises where cattle are crammed in small rooms with such little space they trample on and injure each other,” she said. “In other instances, dairies are run out of sewage drains, forest lands, main roads laden with traffic, denied access to shelter, food or water. Such is the situation that dairy clusters with over 900 cattle each operate out of drains; with cattle tethered neck deep in sewage effluents. In such a setup, the easiest and preferred way of rearing cattle is to not account for the cost of their shelter/housing.”
While Newslaundry could not independently verify the conditions in these dairies, they’re now the target of a drive by Chief Minister Gupta after her encounter with stray cattle this week.
The MCD did not respond to our request for comment. A retired MCD official told Newslaundry, on condition of anonymity, that the capital has “witnessed a continuous influx of cattle from neighbouring states with no proper checks at the borders”.
“Only licensed dairies should be permitted to bring cattle into Delhi. However, there are many dairies operating without licenses, and in some cases, we didn’t even receive license applications from them,” he claimed.
Vasanthi Kumar of STRAW NGO points out that dairies in urban areas are especially problematic. “Cattle need to be in rural areas in a more natural setting. Keeping them in cities is not just inhumane for the cows, but it's dangerous for residents too,” she said.
While there have been news reports on “outsourcing” the capture of stray capital to private companies, NGOs and officials told Newslaundry they either haven’t heard about it, or it hasn’t started yet in Delhi.
There are other reports on “microchipping” stray cattle to better track them. Sibal said these efforts have been “less effective” when considered in a “very limited capacity”.
“What is needed is the implementation of an Information Network for Animal Productivity and Health,” she said, referring to INAPH, a digital system that tags and tracks animals. “This method ensures clear accountability for cattle owners, particularly those who abandon their animals. At present, the coexistence of several tagging systems has led to significant confusion and even confabulation of data. Many of these alternative systems fail to capture accurate data, and even when data is recorded, it often cannot be updated online or accessed digitally by all users. This fragmented tagging landscape that plagues Delhi, obstructs the ability to trace the full lifecycle of cattle.”
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