Cattle Become a Trigger for Sectarian Violence in India - NY Times

Under Hindutvadi leader Narendra Modi as the prime minister of India, the divisive Hindutvadi forces are now terrorizing non-Hindus. They are killing Muslims and other non-Hindus, even under the allegation that they have eaten beef. Here below is another such incident, reported in the New York Times.

===================================

NEW DELHI — Cattle have emerged as a trigger for sectarian tensions in India, with eruptions of deadly violence set off by even rumors of harm to cows, which are regarded as sacred by the country’s Hindu majority.

Police officials said on Friday that one Muslim man had died and four others were injured in the latest episode, in the north Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. A group of Hindu activists who suspected the five men of smuggling cattle for slaughter attacked the men, beating them early on Wednesday morning, the police said. One later died as a result of his injuries.

The men were in a truck carrying 15 bulls and cows when the activists attacked them, and the one who died had been charged with cattle smuggling in another state, the police said. But some of the recent attacks have apparently had little or no basis.

A Muslim family was attacked three weeks ago in a village east of Delhi by a Hindu mob that suspected the family of eating beef, an accusation the family denied. The father, Mohammed Ikhlaq, 50, was killed, and his son was seriously injured.

Two weeks later, a mob in the Mainpuri district of Uttar Pradesh clashed with the police after a rumor spread that a cow had been slaughtered. The rumor was false; the cow was being skinned after it had died from natural causes.

Across much of India, it is illegal to slaughter cows, and an increasing number of states are also imposing bans on eating beef, often under pressure from right-wing Hindu groups. The chief minister of Haryana State, a member of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, stirred controversy on Thursday when he told The Indian Express that “Muslims can continue to live in this country, but they will have to give up eating beef.” He later retracted the remark.

In the episode Wednesday, the police received a tip about a truck carrying cattle in the village of Sarahan and set up a barricade to intercept it. But the truck broke down about a mile before reaching the barricade, the police said, and it was then that the activists who were following the truck attacked the five men.

Devender Singh Yadav, a police inspector in Saharanpur, said that the man who died of his injuries was “a hardened criminal known for cattle smuggling and cow slaughter.” The four who survived have been arrested and charged with cattle theft and cruelty to animals.

No one has been arrested for attacking the men.

The tip to the police came from a Hindu activist, Arun Bhandari. He is the local leader of Bajrang Dal, a hard-line Hindu youth organization that, among other things, presses government officials to enforce laws protecting cows.

Mr. Bhandari could not be reached for comment. His father, Mohan Bhandari, said in an interview that his son had reported cow smugglers to the local authorities at least 10 times in the past year, a claim the police dispute.

Soumya Sambasivan, the district police chief, said in an interview that some local men use their supposed affiliation with the Bajrang Dal as a cover to extort money from cow smugglers. “Some people try to take political mileage by linking themselves to such organization,” Ms. Sambasivan said. “Basically, they are a group of extortionists.”