Cow vigilantes arrested for assault on Indian officials

NEW DELHI: Eight men have been arrested for violently ambushing a government convoy transporting cows in northwest India, police said Tuesday, the latest assault by vigilantes claiming to protect the sacred animal.

A mob of about 200 Hindu hardliners Sunday blocked the convoy of trucks in Rajasthan state as government officials escorted 80 cows and calves to a state-run breeding program in India’s south.

They attacked the officials after accusing them of taking the cows to a slaughterhouse, said Gagandeep Singla, local police chief.

“They stopped the trucks on the pretext of checking documents and then attacked them with sticks and damaged the trucks,” he said, adding the mob tried to set the vehicles ablaze.

More than 50 vigilantes have been identified and charged with assaulting public officials, he added. One of those targeted in the 30-minute attack sustained serious head injuries.

The ambush in Rajasthan was just the latest by self-proclaimed cow protection squads — mobs of Hindu hard-liners who attack anyone suspected of abusing the animals.

In April, a mob beat a 55-yearold Muslim cattle farmer to death in Rajasthan after accusing him of cow smuggling. The man was transporting cows to a dairy farm.

Human Rights Watch has accused police of often filing complaints against victims and their families instead of the vigilantes, who roam highways near state borders largely with impunity.

Violence perpetrated in the name of protecting cows has surged since Prime Minister Narendra Modi led his right-wing Hindu party to power in 2014.

Critics accuse the Bharatiya Janata Party — which promised during the election campaign to completely outlaw cow slaughter across India — of turning a blind eye to the activities of its hard-line supporters.