Were Indian police ‘complicit’ in deadly vigilante mob violence by cow protection groups?

Hindu cow vigilante groups in India are escaping punishment for lynchings because of police inertia and complicity by local officials, leaving the family of those affected without justice, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch.

The report urges the government to prosecute mob violence by cow protection groups that have targeted Muslims, Dalits and other minorities in the five years since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power.

“According to a survey by New Delhi Television, there was a nearly 500 per cent increase in the use of communally divisive language in speeches by elected leaders – 90 per cent of them from the BJP – between 2014 and 2018, as compared to the five years before the BJP came to power,” said the report, released on Tuesday.

Cow protection formed an important theme in a number of these speeches. The report quoted studies showing that between May 2015 and December 2018 at least 44 people, including 36 Muslims, were killed in attacks over beef consumption and the cattle trade.

“Calls for cow protection may have started out as a way to attract Hindu votes, but it has transformed into a free pass for mobs to violently attack and kill minority group members,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

The report looks in detail at 11 vigilante attacks and reveals why the perpetrators have not been punished. In one case, the statement in which the accused men confessed to the killings was not recorded by the police.