- Title: Hindu group offers cow urine in a bid to ward off coronavirus
- Date: 14th March 2020
- Summary: ***WARNING: CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY*** VARIOUS OF COW URINE DRINK IN CLAY GLASSES VARIOUS OF CHAKRAPANI MAHARAJ AND OTHERS HAILING 'GAUMATA' (MOTHER COW) AND CONSUMING COW URINE PHOTOGRAPHERS TAKING PICTURES AND JOURNALISTS FILMING (SOUNDBITE) (Hindi) CHIEF OF 'ALL INDIA HINDU MAHASABHA', CHAKRAPANI MAHARAJ, SAYING: "See, medical science hasn't got a cure for it. So, how will it be done? So this is our way, we are telling you our way. In the end, this will cure coronavirus. Aren't the foreigners also saying to adopt Indian culture and tradition? This is how the cure will come, definitely; this is our faith. We believe that it will cure this and that's why we will consume cow urine."
- Embargoed: 28th March 2020 16:43
- Keywords: Hindu India New Delhi belief coronavirus covid-19 cow urine cow urine party religion
- Location: NEW DELHI, INDIA
- City: NEW DELHI, INDIA
- Country: India
- Topics: Health/Medicine
- Reuters ID: LVA002C50XHS7
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: A Hindu group hosted a cow urine drinking party on Saturday (March 14) as they believe it wards off the coronavirus, as many Hindus consider the cow sacred and some drink cow urine believing it has medicinal properties.
Experts have repeatedly asserted that cow urine does not cure illnesses like cancer and there is no evidence that it can prevent coronavirus.
The "party," hosted by a group called the Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha (All India Hindu Union) at its headquarters in the country's capital, was attended by 200 people, and the organizers hoped to host similar events elsewhere in India.
Chakrapani Maharaj, the chief of the All India Hindu Union, posed for photographs as he placed a spoon filled with cow urine near the face of a caricature of the coronavirus.
Leaders from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist party have advocated the use of cow urine as medicine and a cure for cancer.
A leader from India's north eastern state of Assam told state lawmakers earlier this month during an assembly session that cow urine and cow dung can be used to treat the coronavirus.
The pathogen, which has infected more than 145,000 people worldwide and left over 5,000 dead, has no known scientific cure and governments across the world are struggling to control the spread of the pandemic.
(Production: ANI/Gabriela Boccaccio) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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