Srinagar, May 2: If ever there was something called bovine justice, this is it.

Think of what Kachir Gaw might have gone through, had not someone noticed that the picture on the admit card was, well, that of a cow.

Now that the "mischief" has been spotted, the mood, needless to say, is of retribution.

In what is turning out to be an embarrassment for the M.M. Sayeed-led Jammu and Kashmir government, a cow almost got a ticket to enter an engineering college after the state's Board of Professional Entrance Examinations issued her an admit card for a test.

Cows have been known to jump over the moon, at least in nursery rhymes, but even such athleticism wouldn't have helped crack the test for admission to the diploma course. The admit card has since been withdrawn but not before it triggered a political storm, the latest in an eventful season for cows. Earlier this year, BJP ruled Maharashtra had yanked cows off dining table menus. 

Entrance board chairman G.H. Tantray said: "Obviously, sombody did it to malign the board... We have got the IP address of the person who filled the form (online) and he made the payment of Rs 500 as fee using his credit card...It will soon be clear who did it."

The admit card mentions the name of the candidate as Kachir Gaw (blonde cow), her father's name as Gura Dand (fair bull), her date of birth as January 1, 1997, and the Roll No. as 257394. The admit card also had the picture of the cow in the box allotted for the candidate's photograph and pictures of a foot and tail in the box for scanned thumb impressions.

The test is scheduled for May 10 and Kachir Gaw was allotted a seat in Srinagar's government degree college, Bemina

Farooq Ahmad Mir, controller, examinations, said the board couldn't be blamed. "We had hired a third party to process the applications and it is they who have allotted the roll numbers."

A load of bull, says the Opposition. "Brilliant," tweeted former chief minister Omar Abdullah. "I wish Kachir Gaw had turned up for the examination."