A Murder Over Beef Exposes Indian Tensions

Within minutes a mob stormed into Akhlaq’s house, vandalised the kitchen in search of beef and beat the 56-year-old blacksmith to death with bricks and stones. I appeal to the citizens not to take them seriously.

Police have arrested seven Hindu youths over the murder and one paramilitary soldier accused of planning the attack. The forensic tests later revealed that he was eating lamb.

A perception is being created in the media that BJP is imposing beef ban to implement Hindutva agenda. They consider cow as an object of worship, it is revered. Most beef sold across India is buffalo meat. Akhlaq’s horrific murder has raised the question of the status of Muslims and their existence in the country. It is not a must for Muslims to kill cows, bulls or bullocks and eat beef. On Sunday night, a mob burned a van allegedly carrying beef in a village about 200 miles away from India’s financial hub of Mumbai. The Muslims will be served beef and the Hindus an exclusively vegetarian meal”, Malik told had said. What kind of abuses you are hurling at them? A few argue that Hindu nationalism and its virulent anti-Muslim prejudice are really what’s at play. Devang Pathak wrote what he called “the speech India deserves” from Prime Minister Modi. “A lot of these issues can be sorted out by proper dialogue between representatives of various communities and we plan to set up a body to facilitate this which will help maintain communal harmony”, the official said. They ruled and terrorized for more than two decades.

Congress leader Rashid Alvi, who was reacting to Prime Minister Modi’s remark apparently referring to the Dadri case during an election rally in Nawada, Bihar, yesterday, said merely breaking silence on the untoward incident is not enough.

Within seconds, about a dozen members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) who believe that cows are sacred pounced on the 46-year-old Muslim law maker who isn’t affiliated with a party.

“Mr. Prime Minister, do you think what happened in Dadri was a fight between the Hindus and Muslims?”

“The country has to stand united. Do not pay attention to such statements, even if Modi himself makes any such statement”, the Prime Minister emphasised.

Modi’s comments came more than a week after the killing.

This has prompted columnists, Bollywood stars and even members of his own party to criticize him, a rare thing given that many have expressed concern about the shrinking space for dissent in Modi’s India. Within weeks the new beef campaign was launched and it peaked with the lynching. Passions are aroused by provocative speeches, and the private armies made to attack through the spread of rumours. Today he put that issue on the sidelines.

Analyst Sarfaraz Khan said:* “Religious extremism in India has been increased since Modi’s government came into power”.

“We should drink cow’s milk, not its blood”, Ram Mandal Das, a priest at a Hindu temple in New Delhi that also shelters abandoned cows, said Friday.

“I’m supporting Modi because he wants to develop Bihar”, said Sonu Jaiswal, 37, as she watched Modi in a giant field. His daughter was turning four and he invited our whole building to celebrate. The population of Hindus has shrunk to seven per cent, from 37 per cent at the time of independence, and is shrinking further, in the face of religious persecution by fundamentalist groups.