Killed for a cow: A mob lynching in Odisha and deepening mistrust between communities

Clasping her two-month-old girl adjacent to her chest, Manori Bibi sits silently wrong her mud house. Her look is expressionless adjacent arsenic her baby’s archetypal societal grin flickers crossed her face. Under a thatched extortion riddled with holes, torn isolated not by a storm, but by poverty, Manori’s beingness appears much hard than it already was successful Astia colony of bluish Odisha’s Balasore district.

Her husband, Seikh Mukander Mohammed, a 35-year-old mason, whose meagre regular wages kept the household afloat, died connected January 14. His beingness was allegedly taken aft helium was lynched by gau rakshaks (cow protectionists), who run openly successful vigilante groups predominantly crossed Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled States.

Odisha has recorded an mean of astir 20 cow-related episodes of obstruction and unit successful a period since mid-2025, arsenic per the Odisha Police’s Crime Branch. Typically, groups that run successful the sanction of preventing alleged cattle smuggling obstruct vehicles carrying cattle. They telephone the constabulary thereafter. After Mukander’s death, the constabulary successful Keonjhar, the location territory of Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi, launched multi-district raids to dismantle organised cattle smuggling.

Rizwan, a nonmigratory of the colony and a lensman with an Odia daily, says Mukander’s household present faces a treble battle: “They volition grapple with some societal stigma and deepening fiscal distress.”

In the aboriginal hours

Mukander was calved and raised successful Astia village, 12 kilometres from Balasore municipality and astir 15 km from Chandipur’s Integrated Test Range, India’s premier rocket investigating centre. Astia’s lanes archer a antithetic communicative from galore agrarian settlements: Hindu and Muslim households beryllium broadside by side, often wrong 50 metres of each other. With nary cultivation onshore to inherit, Mukander turned to daily-wage labour. Over time, helium picked up masonry skills, earning astir ₹100 much a time than an unskilled labourer. The betterment did small to easiness the family’s precarity.

“On average, my member got enactment for hardly 18 days a period astatine ₹500 a day. For the remaining days, helium did unusual jobs to survive,” says his younger brother, Seikh Jitender Mohammed. Their begetter is bedridden. January 14, 2026, was Makar Sankranti, a large Hindu harvest festival. It would mean astir a implicit halt to operation enactment successful the area. With nary wages for the day, Mukander needed alternate work.

His mother, Manwari Bibi, recalls that helium received a telephone telephone successful the aboriginal hours of the day. “He was asked to travel a fish-laden pick-up van to its destination, and was promised ₹1,000. He accepted gladly,” she says. Mukander near location betwixt 2.30 a.m. and 3 a.m. Manori says the household had borrowed wealth from 2 self-help groups, and the indebtedness had climbed to ₹90,000. “Work comes rarely. When it does, you cannot refuse,” she says.

A fewer hours later, the household received frantic telephone calls from villagers saying Mukander had met with an accident, she says. By the clip they reached Jaydev Kasaba, wherever the pick-up van had skidded disconnected the road, Mukander had already been shifted to the infirmary by the police. He died aboriginal that afternoon.

Initially, the constabulary treated the lawsuit arsenic cattle smuggling having gone wrong. “An injured cattle was recovered adjacent the vehicle, truthful we invoked provisions of the Odisha Prevention of Cow Slaughter Act, 1960; the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960; and applicable Sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023,” says Debajyoti Dash, Additional Superintendent of Police, Balasore.

As the time progressed, videos began doing the rounds of a person, allegedly Mukander, being mercilessly beaten by a radical of men. While the authenticity of the footage is being verified by the police, the visuals showed the idiosyncratic being forced to chant slogans specified arsenic “Jai Shri Ram” and “Go mata, mo maa” (The cattle is my mother).

Mukander’s member Jitender filed a complaint, following which the constabulary registered a caller case nether Section 103(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, dealing with mob lynching. “We person arrested six persons successful transportation with the incident. The probe is ongoing, and nary 1 volition beryllium spared,” says Balasore Superintendent of Police Pratyush Diwaker. A nonmigratory surviving adjacent Jaydev Kasaba, the tract of the incident, astir 10 km from Mukander’s home, says determination were astir 10 men who intercepted the van successful the aboriginal hours of the morning.

On the streets

Odisha Police’s Crime Branch records amusement a recurring pattern: cattle-laden vans being waylaid and frisked by vigilante groups. In November 2025 alone, astatine slightest 20 cattle transport vehicles were tracked down by the groups crossed antithetic parts of the State. In respective instances, the groups were linked to Hindu organisations, accidental the police.

On November 5, 2025, acting connected accusation provided by members of the Hindu Ekta Manch, a radical for a Hindu rashtra (nation), the constabulary accidental they seized 4 bullocks and arrested a antheral from Barbil successful Keonjhar district. Four days later, connected November 9, a Bajrang Dal subordinate filmed the alleged slaughter of a cattle successful Jagatsinghpur district, pursuing which a lawsuit was registered astatine Balikuda constabulary station.

On November 14, Bajrang Dal members intercepted different cattle van successful Bhadrak, rescuing 8 animals, accidental the police. On November 18, gau rakshaks alerted Khordha constabulary astir a motortruck allegedly carrying 12 buffaloes. Yet again, connected November 21, Bajrang Dal members intercepted a cattle conveyance successful the Sukinda country of Jajpur district, starring to the seizure of 12 cattle.

September 2025 saw cattle transport vehicles being intercepted connected 26 occasions crossed Odisha. In astatine slightest 8 of these cases, including 6 involving Bajrang Dal members, and 1 each involving the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and gau rakshaks, the groups reached the spot earlier they alerted the police.

Police records amusement that 30 cases related to cattle proscription were registered successful August 2025. On August 4, a BJP zilla parishad subordinate tipped disconnected authorities astir the assembly of 21 cows successful the Sinapali country of Nuapada district. According to constabulary documents, astatine slightest 15 radical associated with Sangh Parivar organisations, including the VHP, Bajrang Dal, and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, had archetypal confronted a idiosyncratic linked to the cattle earlier the constabulary stepped successful and formally registered a case.

However, portion constabulary reports routinely admit the relation of these groups successful intercepting cattle vehicles, they seldom papers whether unit preceded their accomplishment connected the scene. Some of those caught were Hindus.

In 2021, arsenic galore arsenic 80 incidents of Hindu-Muslim hostility were recorded, 35 of them triggered by issues related to cows, including alleged trafficking and slaughter. The fig of communal incidents stood astatine 58 successful 2022, and roseate sharply to 85 successful 2023 with cow-related issues emerging arsenic the flashpoint successful 30 and 60 cases respectively. By July 2024, up to 65 Hindu-Muslim incidents had already been reported, of which 49 were centred connected cow-related disputes.

As Mukander’s decease triggered outrage, gau rakshaks denied immoderate relation successful the unit that led to his killing. “We person grown into an organised radical of volunteers who lone pass the constabulary astir cattle proscription and slaughter. We person ne'er been progressive successful violence,” says Jitendra Swain, caput of Maa Bharati Go Seva Kendra successful Balasore, which claims to structure astir 3,000 stray cattle.

According to Swain, astir 30 gau rakshaks and a overmuch larger fig of gau sevaks (servants) are progressive successful the district. “We not lone manus implicit those progressive successful cattle trading to the police, but we besides travel the cases to their logical conclusion. We guarantee the constabulary bash not dilute cases astatine immoderate signifier of the investigation, and we adjacent combat cases successful tribunal truthful that culprits bash not spell unpunished,” helium says. Swain claims nationalist enactment is growing. “The winds of alteration person started blowing. More radical are coming guardant to money efforts to prevention cows successful Odisha,” helium says.

Operating extra-constitutionally

Human rights activists explicit superior interest implicit the unit that often precedes constabulary enactment successful cases of alleged cattle trading. “We person a much than 60-year-old instrumentality successful the signifier of the Orissa Prevention of Cow Slaughter Act, 1960. Where does it notation the relation of cattle vigilantes? Who has fixed them the powerfulness to battle people, adjacent if they are connected the incorrect broadside of the law?” says Biswapriya Kanungo, a quality rights lawyer.

Kanungo says gau rakshaks are exercising “private-army-like” powers. “If they are specified nationalists, however galore ganja-laden trucks person they intercepted? What person they done to halt the theft of minerals from the State?” helium says. By seeking assistance from gau rakshaks to curb cattle proscription portion turning a unsighted oculus to their high-handedness, Kanungo says, the constabulary look to person efficaciously fto these forces escaped connected the streets of Odisha.

The Balasore territory constabulary cannot remember gau rakshaks ever being educated connected their relation arsenic informers alternatively than street-level enforcers. “During the Ama Police meetings, we bash sermon the duties and responsibilities of citizens. People are informed astir the repercussions of taking the instrumentality into their ain hands,” says Balasore SP Diwaker.

Kowtowing to the cow

The sidesplitting connected the streets of Balasore failed to provoke overmuch of a governmental response. Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee president Bhakta Charan Das addressed a property league to condemn the sidesplitting of Mukander portion the Biju Janata Dal dispatched a State-level delegation to Astia colony 5 days aboriginal to conscionable the bereaved family. A squad from the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) besides visited the family. Beyond these gestures, however, determination was small grounds of sustained governmental agitation oregon superior efforts to clasp the medication accountable.

In the 3rd week of January, the absorption of nationalist attraction shifted. Keonjhar constabulary launched 1 of the largest crackdowns connected alleged cattle smugglers successful caller memory, conducting raids crossed Keonjhar, Mayurbhanj, Bhadrak, and Jajpur districts. The constabulary seized ₹1.4 crore successful cash, 1 kilogram of gold, and 3 kg of silver. They arrested 9 radical linked to the cattle trade. The standard of the cognition dominated headlines, portion Mukander’s decease was pushed to the margins.

Amplifying the constabulary action, Animal Husbandry Minister Gokula Nanda Mallik told PTI that the authorities was acting firmly against cattle smuggling. “Properties worthy much than ₹50 crore belonging to cattle traders person been confiscated. The Chief Minister has instructed officials to support a adjacent ticker connected cattle smuggling,” helium said.

On the alleged engagement of gau rakshaks in violence, Mallik said the cattle extortion was linked to “religious sentiment and asmita” (pride), adding that portion societal activists often assistance the police, “they should not instrumentality the instrumentality into their ain hands”. Addressing the Fisheries and Livestock Conclave, Chief Minister Majhi warned cattle smugglers, saying strict enactment would beryllium taken against them. Revenue and Disaster Minister Suresh Pujari announced that cattle shelters would beryllium constructed crossed the State. For this, the authorities would supply the land.

Edited by Sunalini Mathew