Indian State Is Expanding Penalty for Killing a Cow to Life in Prison
The penalty for transporting beef was also raised to a maximum of 10 years, from three,
and the state authorities will now be allowed to confiscate any vehicle used to transport beef, said Babubhai Bokhiriya, the state minister of animal husbandry and water resources.
The move on Friday came after a government crackdown on the largely Muslim-run buffalo slaughterhouses in the state of Uttar Pradesh
and after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P., won the state’s elections in a landslide.
By NIDA NAJAR and SUHASINI RAJMARCH 31, 2017
NEW DELHI — The Indian state of Gujarat is tightening the punishment for the slaughter
of cows, considered sacred in Hinduism, to a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Vijay Rupani, the chief minister of Gujarat, posted on Twitter
that the new laws, which were passed by the state assembly and will need to be signed by the governor, Om Prakash Kohli, were among the most restrictive in India.
It is legal to slaughter buffalo cows after they no longer produce milk,
but Hindu activists in Uttar Pradesh said the industry masked the illicit slaughter of cows.
has passed this bill to get votes." Gujarat, long a stronghold of the right-wing Bharatiya
Janata Party, is scheduled to hold state elections at the end of the year.