Violence From Hindu Nationalists On The Rise In India

An Indian Muslim has died of his injuries after a group of men transporting cattle were attacked by members of a suspected cow protection vigilante group.

Four others survived an attack  by cow protection vigilantes as they were transporting cattle they had purchased from Jaipur in the northern state of Rajasthan back to their dairy farm in neighboring Haryana.

"Despite having legal documents we were pulled out on the streets, beaten by sticks and the crowd was shouting for us to be burned alive. If the police had not come and rescued us, all of us would have been dead," a teenager named Azmat told reporters.

The cow is considered sacred by India's Hindu majority, and killing cows is illegal in many states. Last month, the state of Gujarat passed a law making the slaughter of cows punishable with life imprisonment.

In 2015 a Muslim man was beaten to death in Uttar Pradesh after reports that he had beef in his fridge. Since then, there have been regular reports of cow protection vigilante groups attacking people transporting cattle across the country.

In the current case, the men say that the cows they had bought were not for slaughter, and were for dairy purposes instead.  All five men were rushed to a nearby hospital, but one man, Pehlu Khan, did not survive. He succumbed to his injuries three days later in hospital.

Despite the circumstances, the local police have registered a case against the survivors of the attack for "illegally transporting cows".  "We had all the documents and there was nothing to hide. Police can verify the sale from the government facility," said Irshad Khan.

Vigilante groups who portray themselves as protectors of cows have been active in several states, emboldened by the perceived antagonism against  Muslims on the part of Prime Minister Modi.  Modi and his government as Minister of Gujarat is generally considered to have been complicit in the 2002 Gujarat riots against Muslims.  Suspicions of Modi's intentions towards Muslims were heightened further after his national campaigns in 2007 and 2012 contained pronounced elements of Hindu nationalism.