India doesn’t prosecute cow vigilantes, says US report

NEW DELHI: The US state department has alleged in an annual religious freedom report that Indian authorities “often did not prosecute violence by vigilantes against persons, mostly Muslims” trading in or consuming beef in what would be new irritant in ties.

“Members of civil society and religious minorities stated that under the current government, religious minority communities felt increasingly vulnerable due to Hindu nationalist groups engaging in violence against non-Hindu individuals and their places of worship,” alleged the annual report on the state of religious freedom around the world.

There are demands that US government should raise the issue in the maiden 2 + 2 (Foreign + Defence Minister) Dialogue scheduled early July in Washington. The Indo-US ties have been marked by irritants in recent times across sectors from Iran to trade and tariffs to Russian defence sales to H-1B and H-4 visas.


The report, which excludes the US, said, “while the national government sometimes spoke out against incidents of violence, local political leaders often did not”, citing minority community representatives.