Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Cow vigilante groups often check vehicles for illegal transportation of cows in many states

A court in the northern Indian state of Jharkhand has sentenced 11 men to life in prison for lynching a Muslim meat trader last year.

Alimuddin Ansari, 55, was beaten to death by the men for transporting beef.

This is the first time India has convicted anyone for "cow vigilantism", despite a spate of attacks on Muslim meat traders in the last few years.

Hindus consider cows sacred and killing them is illegal in several states, including Jharkhand.

Incidents of cow vigilantism have become increasingly common in India, but police investigations have often led to acquittals of those accused.

Twelve men were arrested over Mr Ansari's murder but the court deferred its decision on the 12th accused, who is reported to be a juvenile.

"We had prayed the court for maximum punishment," prosecutor Sushil Kumar Shukla told the Indian Express newspaper. He said that the court did not include the 12th accused in its decision as he was between 16 and 18 years of age.

Mr Ansari's son, Shabhan Ansari, said his family was "satisfied" with the verdict, but said they were disappointed that they had not received any compensation from the state government.

Speaking to journalists outside the court, Mr Ansari's wife Mariam Khatun said her husband's death was a tragic loss, but "did not want more bloodshed". She added that she wanted "to live in peace with her family and society".

Ever since the rise to power of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party in the summer of 2014, vigilante cow protection groups have been emboldened, leading to numerous attacks on Muslims and Dalits (formerly untouchables), for whom beef is a staple.

One of the most high-profile incidents occurred in Rajasthan last year, when a dairy farmer, Pehlu Khan, was beaten to death by cow vigilantes affiliated with ring-wing Hindu groups.

The chief minister of BJP-ruled Rajasthan offered condolences over his "demise" without mentioning the fact that he had been murdered. And a BJP lawmaker said he had "no regret" over the killing because Mr Khan was a "cow-smuggler".

Police registered a murder case and made a number of arrests, but no one has yet been convicted.

Last year, protests engulfed India, as people across various cities decried rising attacks on Muslims and Dalits by vigilante groups. The campaign, #NotInMyName, started with a Facebook post by Saba Dewan, who organised the protests after a Muslim teenager was killed in the capital Delhi in June.

About a dozen people have been killed in such attacks so far. Targets are often picked based on unsubstantiated rumours and Muslims have been attacked for even transporting cows for milk.

Human Rights Watch said here had been at least 38 such attacks last year, and 10 people killed.</s>NEW DELHI (AFP) - An Indian court has sentenced 11 men to life in prison for killing a Muslim meat trader they suspected of transporting beef, in the first convictions over so-called "cow vigilantism".

The men, including a worker from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling party, were found guilty of killing Alimuddin Ansari in the eastern state of Jharkhand in June 2017.

It was one of a series of attacks related to cows, which are considered sacred by Hindus.

The men were charged with murder and rioting, among other offences, under India's penal code and a court in Jharkhand's Ramgarh district delivered its verdict on Wednesday (March 21).

"The fast-track court handed them the life sentence yesterday," Rajesh Kumar, a senior police officer in Ramgarh said by phone on Thursday.

"It is the first case in which a court has convicted and punished (perpetrators) for cow vigilantism."

The police officer said a dozen men were arrested over the murder, but the court deferred its decision on the twelfth accused, who is said to be a minor.

India has witnessed a wave of rising tensions over the killing and smuggling of cows in the Hindu-majority country, where their slaughter is a punishable offence in many states, including Jharkhand.

A number of people, particularly Muslims and low-caste Dalits, have been targeted for allegedly killing cows or consuming beef.

Similar cases of cow vigilante violence are at the trial stage, according to Indian media reports.

Human Rights Watch urged law enforcers to take prompt action with credible investigations and prosecutions in the pending cases to rein in "those responsible for hate crimes".

"The authorities still have a long way to go before they can convince religious minorities and socially marginalised communities that justice can be assured," it said in a statement late on Wednesday.

Mr Modi's critics say vigilantes have been emboldened by the election in 2014 of his right-wing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, which promised to completely outlaw cow slaughter across India.

The premier has condemned such vigilantism, saying murders in the name of protecting cows were unacceptable, but it has failed to deter some attackers.

In August, villagers in eastern India beat two Muslim cattle truckers to death on the pretext of protecting cows.</s>Eleven cow protection vigilantes in the Indian state of Jharkhand have been sentenced to life in prison for killing a Muslim man who was transporting beef.

They are thought to be the first people convicted for violence in the name of the cow.

The men, including a district media officer for the ruling Bharatiya Janata party, were convicted of murder and criminal conspiracy offences by a fast-track court on Wednesday.



On the morning of 29 June 2017, the men were part of a mob that pulled Alimuddin Ansari from his vehicle, beat him to death and then set the car on fire. Videos of the crime showed the men thrashing Ansari with pieces of meat while the car burned nearby.

Extremist Hindu groups, many of which claim to be affiliated with Bharatiya Janata, have been implicated in a wave of attacks on Muslims and low-caste Hindus carried out in the name of the cow, which many Hindus regard as sacred.

At least 38 such attacks took place last year, killing 10 people, according to Human Rights Watch.

Days before the attack on Ansari, another man in Jharkhand was reportedly beaten and had his house torched after a cow carcass was found near his home. Four Muslim men were killed in another village in the state in May.

Police are often accused of condoning or ignoring cow vigilantism, in many cases charging the victims with cow smuggling or illegal slaughter.

On the day Ansari was killed, the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, made a speech calling cow vigilantism unacceptable. “No one has the right to take the law into his or her hands,” he said. “We belong to a land of non-violence. Violence is not the solution to any problem.”

Ansari’s wife, Mariam Khatun, told journalists outside the court that she mourned her husband but “did not want more bloodshed”. His son, Shahzad Ansari, told the Guardian he was “happy the court has taken the right decision”.

“My father was not doing anything wrong,” he said. “Nobody should take the law into their hands.”</s>After a Muslim man was killed while transporting beef, the 11 “cow protectors” to blame were sentenced to life in prison.

The incident took place in the Indian state of Jharkhand on the morning of June 29, 2017, The Guardian reports. Alimuddin Ansari was cornered by a mob, allowing the 11 men involved to pull him out of his vehicle.

Ansari was subsequently beaten, and then his car was set on fire.

As the vehicle was engulfed in flames, the mob used pieces of meat to strike the beaten man.

While this horrific incident is shocking, this isn’t the first time a person has been attacked over cows.

Last year, at least 38 of these incidents took place, and at least 10 people were killed. While these cases are fairly common, the latest example of extreme violence in the name of the animal was the first that resulted in a conviction of murder and criminal conspiracy charges.

The Guardian reports that the people allegedly behind these attacks against Muslims and low-caste-Hindus are affiliated with the Bharatiya Janata Party. The political group is one of the two major political parties in the country, and it’s the world’s largest party when it comes to primary membership. It’s also the party of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who made a speech on the day Ansari died condemning cow “vigilantes.”

“No one has the right to take the law into his or her hands,” the prime minister said. “We belong to a land of non-violence. Violence is not the solution to any problem.”

Despite his words, the country’s police are often accused of turning a blind eye to the problem or even adding more fuel to the fire by actually going after victims of unacceptable violence for illegal slaughter.

In an interview after Ansari’s death, his wife, Mariam Khatun, asked the country to put an end to the bloodshed. Ansari’s son, Shahzad Ansari, also spoke, saying he was happy “the court has taken the right decision.”

“My father was not doing anything wrong,” he said. “Nobody should take the law into their hands.”

Whether or not you agree that animals should not be slaughtered for food, it's clear that this type of violent behavior is not the way to handle it. Hopefully, this conviction will serve as a precedent so others who consider themselves "cow protectors" will think twice before taking part in similar attacks.</s>'Cow vigilante' attacks have increased in India in the last couple of years. Source: LenaVolkova/Shutterstock

AN Indian court sentenced 11 so-called “cow vigilantes” to life imprisonment on Wednesday for lynching a Muslim trader they suspected of transporting beef.

The ruling in the state of Jharkhand is the first instance of conviction and sentencing in a case of cow vigilantism, according to The New Indian Express.

The men were part of a mob that pulled Alimuddin Ansari from his vehicle, beat him to death and then set the car on fire in a pre-planned attack on June 29, 2017.

Videos of the crime showed the men thrashing Ansari with pieces of meat while the car burned nearby. The trader was attacked for allegedly carrying beef in his van.

SEE ALSO: India: Muslim Men beaten to death for allegedly stealing cows

The lynching occurred just hours after Prime Minister Narendra Modi warned against such attacks by vigilante group, saying the killing of people in the name of protecting cows was unacceptable.

Ansari’s wife, Mariam Khatun, welcomed the judgement, telling reporters outside the courtroom: “The death of my husband came as an irreparable loss. The accused deserved nothing less.”

Ansari’s lynching followed a string of similar attacks in Jharkhand last year. Extremist Hindu groups, many of which claim to be affiliated with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), have been implicated in a wave of attacks on Muslims and low-caste Hindus carried out in the name of the cow, which many Hindus regard as sacred.

In a bid to stop widespread criticism for their lack of action, the state government warned officers-in-charge of police stations that they would be held responsible for any such incident taking place in their jurisdiction.</s>A court in the northern Indian state of Jharkhand has sentenced 11 men to life in prison for lynching a Muslim meat trader last year.

Alimuddin Ansari, 55, was beaten to death by the men for transporting beef.

This is the first time India has convicted anyone for "cow vigilantism", despite a spate of attacks on Muslim meat traders in the last few years.

Hindus consider cows sacred and killing them is illegal in several states, including Jharkhand.

Incidents of cow vigilantism have become increasingly common in India, but police investigations have often lead to acquittals of those accused.

Twelve men were arrested over Mr Ansari's murder but the court deferred its decision on the 12th accused who is reported to be a juvenile.

"We had prayed the court for maximum punishment," prosecutor Sushil Kumar Shukla told the Indian Express newspaper. He said that the court did not include the 12th accused in its decision as he was between 16 and 18 years of age.

Mr Ansari's son, Shabhan Ansari, said his family was "satisfied" with the verdict, but said they were disappointed that they had not received any compensation from the state government.

Speaking to journalists outside the court, Mr Ansari's wife Mariam Khatun said her husband's death was a tragic loss, but "did not want more bloodshed". She added that she wanted "to live in peace with her family and society".
• Why India man was lynched over beef rumours

Ever since the rise to power of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party in the summer of 2014, vigilante cow protection groups have been emboldened, leading to numerous attacks on Muslims and Dalits (formerly untouchables), for whom beef is a staple.

Last year, protests engulfed India, as people across various cities decried rising attacks on Muslims and Dalits by vigilante cow protection groups . The campaign, #NotInMyName, started with a Facebook post by Saba Dewan, who organised the protests after a Muslim teenager was killed in the capital city Delhi in June 2017.

Nearly a dozen people have been killed in such attacks so far. Targets are often picked based on unsubstantiated rumours and Muslims have been attacked for even transporting cows for milk.</s>Jharkhand court on Wednesday sentenced 11 convicts, including a BJP worker, to life imprisonment for lynching a 55-year-old man in Ramgarh on the suspicion of carrying beef.

They had beaten Asgar Ansari to death and set his vehicle on fire in June 2017 when they suspected him of carrying beef in his van. Days before the attack, two of the accused had raised the issue of Ansari being involved in the illegal trade of beef at a peace meeting held by Ramgarh police.

On March 17, the fast track court found the 11 men guilty under Section 120B in the Indian penal code indicating that the attack was pre-planned.

Three of these men are members of a local cow protection committee, according to reports. They are convicted in other charges as well in addition to this. According to a repors, this is the first time there has been a conviction in case of cow vigilantism.

The accused are Nityanand Mahato, of the BJP media cell, Vicky Saw, Sikander Ram, Vikram Prasad, Raju Kumar, Rohit Thakur, Kapil Thakur and Uttam Kumar were convicted under IPC sections 302 (murder), 147 (rioting), 148 (rioting with deadly weapon), 149 (unlawful assembly), 427 (mischief causing damage) and 435 (mischief by fire), Indian Express reported.

On June 29, last year, Raj Kumar had followed Asgar Ansari while he was in constant touch with Mishra and another main accused Chhotu Verma, according to Indian Express. Mishra and Verma both had connections with gau rakshak samiti had surrendered to the police on July 3.

They all chose a common point which was notified to them. They met at a spot near Bazar Tand and started beating him and did not stop till he died. They then set his vehicle on fire. Police told Express that the murder of Ansari was well planned.</s>NEW DELHI: According to Times of India, as many as 91% Indian Hindus have a close friend from among their own community but only 33% Indian Hindus count a Muslim as a close friend . While 74% Indian Muslims have a close friend among Hindus, 95% of of them have a close friend within the community.

If the figures point to "walls of religion" in cultivating relationships, they also reinforce the belief that Indian community identities continue to hold sway over people in deciding who they trust.

A Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), India, study to probe "society and politics between elections" has found that maximum number of Indian Hindus and Muslims have noted people from their own religion as close friends.

The study also highlights what it calls "isolation of Muslims" across four Indian states of Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka and Odisha where the survey was carried out.

While only 13% Indian Hindus think of Muslims as "highly patriotic", the figure is slightly better at 20% Hindus favouring Christians in the similar category and the percentage is 47% for Sikhs.

At least 77% Indian Muslims consider their own community as "highly patriotic" but just 26% Indian Christians see Muslims in the same light on this sensitive scale and the number is much lower at 11% among Sikhs. Interestingly, only 66% Indian Sikhs consider Hindus to be "highly patriotic".

The data also reports a high level of "majoritarian" attitudes. People were categorised as "liberal" and "majoritarian" on the basis of response to queries - should the Indian government punish those who don't respect the cow; don't say 'bharat mata ki jai' at public functions; eat beef or cow meat; do not stand up for Indian national anthem; or engage in religious conversions? Nearly 72% were found to possess "majoritarian" attitudes while 17% have "weak liberal" attitude and merely 6% with "liberal" attitude.

The mapping of trust among institutions has yielded a known fact - that Indian Army enjoys the highest level of trust among people. In stark contrast Indian police, political parties and govt officials languish at the bottom of the trust pile.</s>Farha Faiz, a lawyer, speaks with the media after a verdict for the controversial Muslim quick divorce law outside the Supreme Court in New Delhi, India August 22, 2017. Photo by Reuters/Adnan Abidi.

India's Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled a controversial Muslim instant divorce law unconstitutional, a landmark victory for Muslim women who had long argued that it violated their right to equality.

The law allows Muslim men to divorce their wives simply by uttering the word "talaq" three times. Muslim women say they have been left destitute by husbands divorcing them through "triple talaq", including by Skype and WhatsApp.

Under the ruling, the government will need to frame new divorce legislation, which would replace the abolished practice of triple talaq.

"Finally, I feel free today," Shayara Bano, who was divorced through triple talaq and was among the women who brought the case, told Reuters after the ruling.

"I have the order that will liberate many Muslim women."

The ruling was delivered by a panel of five male judges from different faiths - Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Sikhism and Zoroastrianism.

Three of the five ruled that the practice was unconstitutional, overruling the senior-most judge in India, the chief justice.

He announced a suspension of the practice, and told the government to come up with a new law within six months.

Many Muslim countries have banned the practice of triple talaq, including neighboring Pakistan and conservative Saudi Arabia.

Opposition to the law helped forge an unlikely coalition of Muslim women and Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ruling Hindu nationalist party, which wanted the law quashed, and pitted it against Muslim groups that say the state has no right to interfere in religious matters.

Some fear that the Hindu majority is trying to limit Islamic influence in society. Muslims make up about 14 percent of India's 1.3 billion people.

Two of the judges said triple talaq was "arbitrary" and violated fundamental rights. Justice Kurian Joseph said the practice was not "integral" to the Muslim faith.

Opponents of the law have toiled to abolish it for decades and were given a boost last year when Modi threw his support behind Bano, calling the law derogatory and discriminatory against women.

"It grants equality to Muslim women and is a powerful measure for women empowerment," he said in a tweet.

Tuesday's ruling could spur Modi's party to push again for its long-held desire for a uniform civil code, which would end the application of religious laws to civil issues.

"The Supreme Court has a right to interfere in the personal space and they have done so," said Maneka Gandhi, minister for women and child development.

Some Muslim institutions have said that while triple talaq is wrong, the law should be reviewed by the community itself.

The All India Muslim Personal Law Board said it would contest the court's decision.

"The fact that only three of the five judges have deemed the practice illegal shows that there was no clear decision," member Maqsood Hasani Nadvi said.

India allows religious institutions to govern matters of personal law - marriage, divorce and property inheritance - through civil codes designed to protect the independence of religious communities.</s>BEHROR, India (Reuters) - The beating that ended Pehlu Khan's life was televised nationwide. Cell phone video captured a group of men punching and slinging Khan around the middle of a road in north India, stomping on him and then slamming the 55-year-old farmer down on concrete as he begged for mercy.

 Khan had been stopped by the lynch mob of right-wing Hindus as he rode home from a market in April with two cows and two calves in the back of a truck. The crowd was furious at the sight of a Muslim transporting animals held sacred by Hindus, according to the accounts of his sons and two fellow villagers who were also attacked. Before the men beat Khan so badly that he later died, breaking his ribs in multiple places, they screamed that he was planning to slaughter the cattle for beef.

 Outside the frame of the video, something else was happening: Pehlu Khan's cows were seized. They were hauled off to a nearby Hindu-run shelter that takes in cattle snatched from Muslims and sells them.

 Assaults meted out in broad daylight against India's Muslim population, some 14 percent of the country's 1.3 billion people, have sparked concern about the direction the country is taking under Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi. There has been another, less noted dimension to the violence: The theft from Muslims and redistribution to Hindus of cows that provide crucial income in the Indian countryside.

 Such scenes clash with India's image as an investor darling in Asia and the pro-business message Modi broadcasts to foreign investors. But three and a half years after his electoral victory, the cow seizures illustrate how the nation's right-wing Hindu factions that propelled Modi to power are now shaping India and stirring religious upheaval.

 Having stoked Hindu nationalist passions in his bid for the highest office, it's unclear to what extent Modi can now control them. The bands of right-wing Hindus who seize the cows are operating essentially as private militias. They are undeterred by the prime minister's public calls on them to end the violence. States governed by Modi's party have seen a marked increase in cow theft from Muslims as well as funding for cow shelters that in many cases take in the stolen cattle.

 Interviews with nationalist Hindu leaders and militia members across the country reveal an impatience for Muslims to demonstrate obeisance to the Hindu majority.

 There are no official statistics for how many cows have been stolen from Muslims in incidents involving such groups since Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to national power in 2014. Reuters' reporting across India, though, puts actual numbers on the extent of the cow theft. It also provides the first in-depth look at how the actions of cow vigilantes are leading to further economic marginalization of the country's Muslim minority.

 

 VALUABLE POSSESSION

 In northern India, the leadership of just two of the main organizations of "gau rakshaks" – right-wing Hindu cow vigilantes, or literally "cow protectors" – said they have taken about 190,000 cows since the year of Modi's election, some in the presence of police and almost every single one of them from Muslims, the reporting shows.

 Separately, Reuters surveyed 110 cow shelters or farms, known as "gaushalas," across six Indian states that were led by BJP chief ministers from before or just after Modi's 2014 election win. The survey found an increase of 50 percent in their cattle holdings - from about 84,000 head before Modi came to power in 2014 to more than 126,000 today.

 The survey, conducted by phone and in person, covered a fraction of the thousands of cow sheds nationwide.

 It was not possible to determine how much of the 50 percent increase was due to cow vigilantes, because record-keeping in many cases is non-existent. But of the 110 cattle facilities surveyed, all but 14 said they receive cows from the Hindu vigilante groups. About a third said they sell or give cows away, nearly all to Hindu farmers and households.

 In a separate survey, Reuters found that only three of 24 cow facilities in four states not ruled by a BJP chief minister said they sold or gave away cattle - mainly to Hindus - after receiving them. While cattle stock has risen about 40 percent in these gaushalas since Modi took office, only a small part of the increase was due to vigilantes. In many of the cases, cows were donated to the shelters for religious reasons or purchased from cattle markets for fear they would be slaughtered.

 It is hard to put a value on the seized cattle because the price of cows ranges from zero for animals near death to 25,000 rupees (about $385), if not more, at cattle markets for healthy milk cows. But taking the average of those two points, just the 190,000 cows captured by the two vigilante groups in northern India would be worth more than $36 million. That is a significant amount of money in India, where some 270 million people live on less than $1.90 a day. In rural areas, home to about 70 percent of the nation's population, a family's milk cow is often its most valuable possession.

 

 'AN ACT OF DEVOTION'

 Cow slaughter is illegal in most of India, while committing cruelty to cattle by transporting them crammed into small spaces is outlawed across the country. Slaughtering buffalo, an animal not considered holy, is allowed, fueling a multi-billion dollar meat export industry that is dominated by Muslims. Penalties for killing a cow differ from state to state, with most ranging from six months to five years in prison.

 The fatal assault on Pehlu Khan unfolded among the rolling hills of India's northwestern Rajasthan state. Traveling with his two adult sons in a rented truck, Khan was headed home to the village of Jaisinghpur in the neighboring state of Haryana. He'd borrowed 40,000 rupees (about $620) to add to cash he'd cobbled together to buy the cows.

 His four animals were among 32 other cattle seized on April 1 at makeshift roadblocks near the town of Behror. A day after the attack on Khan and his two sons, police began an investigation against them under a state law barring cow slaughter. On April 3, Khan died.

 In its April 18 order following a bail hearing for the sons, a local court noted that the Khan family, found lying injured on the ground, was unable to produce a waybill showing they'd legally purchased the animals. Also, the cows were bound together at the mouth and, the judge noted, "our society does not allow animals to be treated in an inhumane way."

 Khan's elder son, Irshad, told Reuters that the cows had not been tied together. The receipt they got at the cattle fair where they bought the animals, he said, was snatched by the mob at the start of the violence. The family handed Reuters a copy of the bill that they later retrieved.

 A Reuters reporter showed the receipt to clerks and a local official from the office that issues the documents near the fair, in the city of Jaipur. They said the document was authentic and should have ensured safe passage. 

 The men who delivered the cattle to the local cow shed, with the help of police who rounded up the cows at the scene of the attack, were members of right-wing Hindu organizations, according to the manager of the facility. Survivors said the lynch mob let the driver of the truck, a Hindu, escape.

 The shed often receives cattle "taken from Muslims" by Hindu vigilante groups who suspect they'll use the animals for meat, according to Vijay Singh, its manager. Singh said he sells the best cows to local Hindu farmers and landowners.

 Speaking of the men who took the animals from Khan, Singh said they had performed "an act of devotion."

 

 'THEIR WORK SUPPORTS THE POLICE'

 The cattle shelters range from tiny pastures to large complexes. They have traditionally operated as religiously-motivated charities, taking in cows abandoned by farmers because they no longer produce milk or those dropped off by local government workers who found them wandering the streets.

 People involved in snatching cattle from Muslims speak with a triumphant sense that their moment in history has arrived. "Everyone in this world is born Hindu. They are turned into Muslims when they are circumcised and Christians when they are baptized," said Dinesh Patil, a district head of the Bajrang Dal group in the southwestern state of Maharashtra.

 The Bajrang Dal organization is closely linked to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the nation's umbrella right-wing Hindu organization. The RSS argues the purity of India was soiled by the foreign intervention of Muslims and then Christians beginning in the 8th century. The RSS helped create Modi's political party, and the prime minister himself first attended the group's meetings as a child.

 At the complex he manages, Patil said that almost every one of the 1,700 cows grazing outside was "rescued by the Bajrang Dal" from "these Muslim slaughterers." Patil described how a degree of law enforcement sanction is conferred on the cattle seizures: His group takes the cows and hands them over to the police, who then deliver the cattle to his facility. "The entire investigation and catching of the culprits is done by us," Patil said.

 The police, he added, "have to listen to us because the BJP is in power."

 Told of Patil's comments, Bipin Bihari, second-in-command of police for Maharashtra, said: "In a way their work supports the police. It eases our work. If they have some information on some illegal activities, they can share it with us, and we act on it. But they are not allowed to take the law into their hands."

 A national spokesman for the ruling BJP, Sudhanshu Trivedi, said his party expects anyone with knowledge of illegal acts, such as cow slaughter, to inform the police. In cases where cows were taken, he added, it was because their owners had broken laws: "It is not redistribution of wealth. It is just stopping of illegal activities," he said.

 Modi's office referred Reuters' request for comment to the Home Ministry. The ministry said it is "not correct" that cow vigilantism has risen on Modi's watch and "preposterous" to conclude that Hindus are organizing to confiscate and redistribute cattle. Some people have taken the law into their own hands "in the name of protecting the cows," the ministry noted in a written statement, but "the Government is committed to protect the legal rights of all citizens, including minorities in India." State governments, it said, have been directed to take "prompt action" against such people.

 

 CROSSED SWORDS

 Reuters found no evidence of a formal plan by the BJP to use cow vigilante groups to engineer the seizure and transfer of cows from Muslims to Hindus.

 But in states where the BJP has taken power, cow seizures have ramped up. In the absence of official data on the number of cows taken, Reuters reporting and a review of past incidents show that the largest vigilante groups and the cattle seizures are concentrated in BJP-led states.

 One organization of cow vigilantes in the northern state of Haryana has a golden cow with crossed swords and two AK-47s beneath it as its logo. The leaders of the Gau Raksha Dal, or cow protection group, say they have captured up to 120,000 across the country since beginning their campaign in 2013. Most of that activity was carried out after Modi's victory in 2014, which was followed by a BJP chief minister taking office in Haryana later in the year.

 Dinesh Arya, state head of the Gau Raksha Dal, acknowledged his group is breaking the law. Arya produced a list of 27 criminal complaints lodged by cattle traders against his members that he said were still pending. "Seizing cattle is not legal and we know that well. We are not authorized to do this, it's the police department's work," Arya said.

 But he claims a higher calling: "Our religion has given us the right to stop our mother being butchered," he said, referring to "gau mata," or mother cow. "We have forcefully taken that right."

 Outside his office, a truck converted into a "mobile cow ambulance" used to transport seized cattle bore a bullet hole – the aftermath of a recent gun battle with Muslim "cattle smugglers," Arya said.

 Modi has at least twice publicly criticized cow vigilantism. "Do we get the right to kill a human being in the name of cow? Is this 'gau bhakti'? Is this 'gau raksha'?" he declared in a speech in June, using the Hindi phrases for cow devotion and cow protection. "Violence is not the solution to any problem," he added.

 The Supreme Court has also addressed the issue. In September, the court ruled that central and state governments must deploy police officers to prevent cow vigilante violence.

 

 MODI'S CALLS UNHEEDED

 On the ground, some Hindu activists aren't heeding Modi's calls. The leader of a group of cow vigilantes, which claims 10,000 members concentrated mostly in western and northern Indian states, said they were unmoved by the prime minister's condemnation of what he called the vigilantes' "anti-social activities."

 "The cow protection movement totally belonged to the BJP before 2014," said the group's leader, Pawan Pandit, a part-time software engineer. "Now groups like ours have the momentum."

 Pandit said networks of vigilantes operating under his Bhartiya Gau Raksha Dal – or Indian cow protection group – captured as many as 60,000 cows in the three years before Modi came to office. Since 2014, Pandit said, the group has grabbed more than 100,000 cows, often working with police.

 A similar scenario has unfolded in Assam, where the BJP won power last year. Located in the farthest reaches of India's northeast, the state is in a region where cow vigilante activity was all but unheard of.

 The leader of a right-wing Hindu youth organization said he waited a year for the BJP-led government in Assam to crack down on what his group views as illegal cattle trading. Then, said Balen Baishya, head of the Hindu Youth-Students Council of Assam, he decided that local party leadership was not made up of "hardcore believers."

 On July 2, Baishya said, he and his men seized three vehicles carrying cows. Video of the incident posted to the Internet shows a mob surrounding one of the drivers as a man beat him with a baton while he writhed on the ground and tried to shield himself.

 This lawlessness extends beyond the 18 states Modi's BJP now controls directly or with coalition partners. In the southern state of Telangana, one of 11 states where the BJP is not in power, a man named Purushottam Gupta was arrested shortly after Modi gave a speech in August last year condemning cow vigilantes. Gupta had refused a court order to hand back 20 cattle seized by cow vigilantes and kept them with some 5,000 other cows at a facility next to the ashram where he is the de facto deputy head. Gupta said he was released the same day he was arrested and that the cows have yet to be returned to their Muslim owners. 

 India's laws against cow slaughter predate Modi's administration, and cow vigilantes were operating in India before Modi came to power. At the federal level, the BJP's predecessor, the relatively liberal Congress party, funded the cow sheds via a federal animal welfare association at higher levels than Modi. Spending from the association's four main gaushala grants, the primary source of federal funding for the facilities, was about 150 million rupees for the 2010-11 fiscal year, compared with some 58 million for 2015-16, the most recent period available.

 But at the state level, BJP politicians have in many cases sharply increased funding for the cattle shed facilities through government bodies. In Haryana, the state where Pehlu Khan lived, the Gau Seva Aayog, or cow protection commission, went from allotting 18.5 million rupees to cow sheds in the 2014-15 fiscal year, when a BJP chief minister took over, to more than 37 million for 2016-17. In Rajasthan, the state where Khan was killed, funding doubled from about one billion rupees in 2013-14, as the BJP captured the state, to more than 2.3 billion rupees in 2016-17, according to a state official.

 

 A COW-INSPIRED 'AWAKENING'

 Officials in two of the states surveyed by Reuters that are not governed by a BJP chief minister, said the government provides no funding for gaushala facilities. A third state does not make payments annually and a fourth, Karnataka in the south, began increasing its grants because of droughts that caused farmers to abandon their cows, increasing the burden on gaushalas, according to the state's animal husbandry department.

 Police completed their formal court charge sheet in May for Pehlu Khan's death, naming 15 alleged attackers as taking part in the killing. The charge sheet included a statement Khan gave from the intensive care unit at 11:50 p.m. on the night of the April 1 assault. He said of the men who assaulted him: "They were calling themselves workers of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal" – both founded by members of the RSS, the nationalist organization that Modi joined as a youngster.

 Surendra Jain, joint general secretary for the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, parent organization of the Bajrang Dal, said that "not a single person from VHP was involved" in the attack on Pehlu Khan. Asked whether he was certain, Jain said: "I can't say. We have not looked in detail into these cases."

 "If the sentiments of the majority community are respected, there would be no such incidents," said Jain. "Can we demand pork in any Gulf country?"

 Manmohan Vaidya, national spokesman for the RSS, said his group doesn't "support any act of violence or people taking the law into their hands."

 Another senior RSS official, speaking on condition he not be named, was more pointed: "Hindus never had the courage to stand up for their religion and now they are standing up," he said. "The cow issue has led to an awakening."

 In Jaisinghpur, the small, poor village that Pehlu Khan called home, his name is still in a fat, red notebook listing loans given out to villagers by a local dairy operation. Entries on the front and back of a faded page for Khan reaching back to 2006 show that he borrowed money and paid back the loans in milk.

 Mohammed Yunus, the 58-year-old patriarch of the Muslim family that runs the dairy, shook his head. He said he had suggested to Pehlu Khan that he make the trip that ended his life, the one to the city of Jaipur to buy cows with his two adult sons. The cattle fair there has better milk cows than the local markets, Yunus explained.

 At the district police station, the head constable took out his book of criminal records for the village and searched for the names of Pehlu Khan, the Yunus family, and others interviewed in the area. None of them had been arrested for anything related to cow smuggling or slaughter, according to the records. There were two notations for one of Pehlu Khan's sons when he was a teenager, one for being found with a dead cow and the other for traveling with animals stuffed in a vehicle.

 The son, Irshad, said one case involved a buffalo that was later returned by police, and the other was rooted in a dispute with a distant relative.

 In the weeks after the murder of Pehlu Khan, a leader of a small opposition party visited the family home to pay his respects. He gave the Khans something to help pay back the 40,000 rupees they still owed the Yunus family from the loan Pehlu Khan took – something to give Khan's widow and children hope.

 It was a cow.

 

 

 (Additional reporting by Mayank Bhardwaj, Mohi Narayan and Rupam Jain in New Delhi. Edited by Peter Hirschberg and Paritosh Bansal.)
An Indian court convicts eleven Hindus of murdering a Muslim man they discovered transporting beef, sentencing them to life. It is the first successful prosecution of cow vigilantism violence in India.