Published: 01:12 AM, 22 July 2018
Muslim man beaten death in India for transporting cows
Suspected vigilantes on Saturday killed a Muslim man transporting two cows in India. -Reuters Suspected vigilantes on Saturday killed a Muslim man transporting two cows in India, just 15 months after a similar attack spotlighted the growing influence of pro-Hindu fringe groups.
Many Hindus regard the cow as sacred, but India's Muslim minority engages in the trade of cattle for slaughter and consumption, chiefly of buffalo meat, as well as dairy purposes.
Police in the northwestern state of Rajasthan said a group of five to seven people surrounded the man, identified only as Akbar, as he led the cows to his village in the nearby state of Haryana and thrashed him to death on suspicion of cow smuggling. "We are investigating the incident and will make arrests soon," Shyam Singh, a police official in the district of Alwar, told Reuters.
The incident took place soon after midnight, triggered by the suspicions of a few nearby villagers that the 28-year-old man was smuggling the cows, Singh said. Akbar belonged to the farming community in adjacent Haryana.
Cow vigilantism by pro-Hindu groups has surged in India since Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in 2014, although most of the country's 29 states have banned the killing of cows for meat.
---Reuters, Mumbai
