"When police, at a barricade at Dharuhera, signalled a pick-up vehicle, laden with smuggled cows, in the early hours today, the cow smugglers not only opened fire on the police personnel and attempted to kill them, but they damaged a police vehicle as well," a police official said.
When the police pursued them, all the five cow smugglers abandoned the pick-up and managed to escape in the darkness, he said.
Police impounded the vehicle. Ten cows in it were taken out and were being sent to a Gaushala (cow shelters) at Boodhi Bawal village in Alwar district of Rajasthan, he said, adding that one cow had died of suffocation.
A case of attempt to murder, assault, and under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act and the Arms Act, has been registered against the absconding cow smugglers, he said.