This UP millionaire spends weekends taking care of 65 cows
    Date :24-Jul-2020

Zubaid ur Rehman_1 &
 Zubaid-ur-Rehman working at Madhusudan Gaushala in Chandyana village, Bulandshahr on Thursday. (PTI)
 
 
By Amanpreet Singh :
 
BULANDSHAHR,
 
DRENCHED in sweat, clearing the floor covered in cow dung while smearing his pyjama cuffs, Zubaid-ur-Rehman could be mistaken for an ordinary labourer working at a cow shelter in the hinterlands of Uttar Pradesh. But, he is not.
 
The man owns 40 acres of land where he has developed mango orchards and also runs a real estate business apart from a utensil factory in New Delhi. Notwithstanding his net worth, running into several crores, Zubaid-ur-Rehman spends weekends tending to 65 cows at Madhusudan Gaushaala, developed and maintained by him at Chandyana village in Bulandshahr district, about 125 kms from the national capital. ‘Babban miyan’ as he is popularly known, takes pride in fulfilling the desire of his mother Hamidunnisa Khanam. Sheltering and protecting cows and addressing the river Ganga as mother, comes naturally to him. The practice attracts both brickbats and bouquets for him.
 
“My Hindu brothers do it but why can’t Muslims do it. This is something that gives me immense satisfaction. It comes from inside. My mother started the trend some 50 years back and after her passing away, we have only expanded it,” Zubaid-ur-Rehman told PTI in a chat. “My mother would ensure that sick cows receive treatment and would always ask us, if we would continue to do it. We don’t know how she developed an interest in it but now this has become our family’s identity.”
 
Chandyana is one of the 12 villages, known as Barah Bassi (12 colonies) and ‘Pathano ki basti’, falling in Tehsil Syana in district Bulandshahr. It’s a place where some Pathan families, that travelled to India with Isa Khan Niyazi, settled during the times of Sher Shah Suri, who established the Suri empire in Northern India in the 16th century. Since then Chandyana and its neighbouring areas became Muslim dominated. “We follow the ‘Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb’. We have named the shelter after Lord Krishna (Madhusudan),” he said.