Home Latest News Indian Villagers Beat Muslim Cattle Smuggler to Death

Indian Villagers Beat Muslim Cattle Smuggler to Death

by AFP
File Photo. Asif Hassan—AFP

File Photo. Asif Hassan—AFP

Police say four accomplices also injured in assault.

Villagers in northern India beat a Muslim man to death for attempting to smuggle cattle for slaughter, police said Friday, the latest victim of soaring religious tensions in a country where the majority consider cows sacred.

Twenty-year-old Noman, whose full name is not known, and four others were severely beaten before being handed over to police in the north Indian state of Himachal Pradesh on Thursday, according to officials.

Police said the five smugglers were attacked by villagers after abandoning their vehicle, which was crammed full of cows and bulls, next to a highway after it broke down on the way to neighboring Uttar Pradesh state. “The other four persons are in a good state but Noman died because of his injuries,” said Soumya Sambasivan, superintendent of police in Sirmaur district, adding that the victim was Muslim.

“We have registered a second case against yet unidentified persons for murder,” Sambasivan said, referring to an earlier case registered against the smugglers for animal cruelty. “For now, it looks entirely unrelated to any group or entity.”

The killing comes less than a month after the lynching by villagers of Muslim Mohammad Akhlaq, who was dragged from his home near to New Delhi and beaten to death by a hardline Hindu mob over unsubstantiated rumors he had eaten beef. Hindus consider cows sacred, and beef eating has become a highly contentious issue since Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) took power, with some states banning the practice.

The chief minister of northern Haryana state, Manohar Lal Khattar, drew ire on Friday after saying that India’s minority Muslims should stop eating beef out of respect to practicing Hindus. “Muslims can live here, but in this country, they will have to stop eating beef,” Khattar, a member of the ruling BJP, told The Indian Express newspaper. He later said his comments had been distorted despite the daily releasing an audio recording to prove its version.

Cattle smuggling and tension over their illegal slaughter is routine in the Himachal Pradesh region, according to police, and villagers frequently beat those whom they catch. Despite the slaughter of cows being widely banned, India ranks as the world’s top beef exporter thanks largely to buffalo meat exports, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

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1 comment

mihir October 18, 2015 - 7:52 am

Muslims are free to leave india no one forced them to stay in 1947 and no one is forcing them to stay now. They can go to pakistan or bangladesh or any Islamic country willing to accept them

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