Most of the opposition parties blamed Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-affiliates for the cow vigilantism.
In an apparent backlash to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's comments that cow vigilantes were trying to create tension in the society and that they should be exposed and punished, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad has said that the prime minister will have to pay a price in the 2019 national election.
'Why has cows eating plastic become so important only before the Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh elections?'
Addressing an event in Jaipur, the RSS leader said, "The term 'Hindu' has already entered our Constitution and country. It is a fact of history. Hindu is an identity and a culture to which people belong."
The RSS chief recalled how Vajpayee "had almost solved the Kashmir issue but later governments did not follow up on Vajpayee's efforts".
Rajasthan Police has denied the allegation of a woman who said her full-term pregnant daughter-in-law lost her child after she was assaulted by it during a raid at her house.
Already in the eye of a raging controversy over the 'Ghar Wapsi' programme, fiery Hindutva mascot and Bharatiya Janata Party MP Yogi Adityanath has now launched a campaign for declaring cow as 'Rashtra Mata', claiming his demand "embodies the sentiment of every Indian".
The BJP MLA was apparently referring to an incident in Kerala last year, where a group of men slaughtered a cow in the open, triggering a controversy.
A Congress Corporator wants Mumbai civic body to use cow urine to sanitise hospitals across the metropolis.
The Opposition parties need to spell out how exactly they will protect the citizen from government excess, asserts T N Ninan.
The Rajasthan high court on Wednesday recommended the Centre that the cow be made the national animal, further adding that the punishment for cow slaughter should be escalated to life imprisonment.
Union minister Ramdas Athawale said 'so-called' cow vigilantes are like 'nar-bhakshaks'.
The respective Dussehra rallies of Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and and Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray chief Uddhav Thackeray were once again about whose version of Hindutva is genuine and who is the true inheritor of party patriarch Bala Thackeray's legacy.
Drones are a new technology added recently to the weapons used in the violence between the two large ethnic groups -- Meitei and Kuki -- in the northeastern state, which left over 200 people dead since May last year.
'it looks like India wants to follow Pakistan on the slippery slope of stupidity masquerading as religion.'
The Guruvaayoorappan temple in Morganville, New Jersey, which is the biggest of its kind in North America, has now turned into a Vrindavan of sorts with the grand opening of a cow sanctuary On the premises.
The Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled Madhya Pradesh has brought in a stringent law against cow slaughter which has raised the jail term from the current three years to seven years for violators.
From August 1, hundreds of volunteers of the Gau Raksha Committee, which has many BJP members, will fan out in the state for the exercise, the outfit said.
'Farmers love cows but find it uneconomical to afford fodder expenses'
'The cow can always be the CAUSE.' 'Cause for murder. Cause for setting India's people against each other.' 'Not recognising the fact that this can tip the country into an unending spiral of civil strife and set the much-vaunted 'India story' back by years is the ultimate stupidity of all,' says Shuma Raha.
The coastal districts of Udupi and Dakshina Kannada have been reporting cases of cow vigilantism in the last several years.
"I am not talking of vigilantism, I am talking of are we vigilant enough proactively to save the basic tenets of our country?" he questioned.
The Bajrang Dal activists alleged that the behaviour of the four persons had been 'suspicious' and accused them of being cattle thieves.
'The problem here is not that one community's deity has suddenly become another community's meal.' 'Hindus and Muslims have been peacefully coexisting with their cows for centuries now.' 'The problem here is that a section of Indians has been suddenly made to realise that it makes great political sense to degrade each one of the 170 million Muslims to a potential cow-killer, lynch a few of them to keep the heat on, polarise and win elections.'
Insisting that the cow should be protected, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday said that even the Mughals were aware of the fact that if they had to rule then an "open support to cow slaughter" would not be feasible while the Britishers failed to understand this aspect.
He also told reporters outside the state assembly complex here that the state police will seek help from central agencies on a possible Pakistan angle in the incident.
Justifying its controversial ban on slaughter of cows, bulls and bullocks, Maharashtra government said there is a need to protect and preserve these animals as the state's economy is still predominantly agricultural.
The RSS will also offer special prayers to protect cows.
Here is Rediff.com's selection of some stories from Thursday that you may not have read in the morning newspaper.
Six persons were arrested under the Indian Penal Code and the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, police added.
Under the bill, cow slaughter will be an offence punishable with rigorous imprisonment for a term which may be extended up to 10 year.
'Muslims and Christians should understand that the cow is sacred to us. It is not good for health. They should eat something else.'
The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear a plea filed by a women's organisation seeking directions to states to take immediate action in consonance with a 2018 verdict of the apex court to effectively deal with incidents of lynching and mob violence against Muslims by cow vigilantes.
'Episodes of targeted attacks on Muslims established that for a section of people and, sadly, even officials of the State, the election results conveyed no lessons.' 'Opposition parties must not be hesitant in speaking out whenever the mob with tacit State support targets Muslims,' asserts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, author of Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times.
In a video of the meeting which took place Monday at a college in Behror, self-styled gau rakshak Sadhvi Kamal Didi was seen telling Yadav, "Poora Bharat tere saath mein hai, aur hum apne desh mein aise kaam nahi karenge toh kahan karenge. Koi bhi toh na jhuke, aur na he tujhe kisi prakar ki chinta karne ki avashakta hai (The entire country is with you. If we won't do such things in our country then where else. One shouldn't give in. You shouldn't worry about anything)," she said.
The Assam assembly on Friday passed a bill to regulate the slaughter, consumption and transportation of cattle, notwithstanding the walkout staged by the opposition parties in protest against the government's refusal to forward the legislation to a select committee.
The Haryana government has imposed a complete ban on the sale of beef in any form and proposed to provide for 10 years rigorous imprisonment for cow slaughter, but ruled out equating it with murder.
They dragged out the driver of the vehicle, Mohammed Allimuddin, a resident of neighbouring Hazaribagh district, and thrashed him, injuring him seriously.
'The power sector accounts for much of the financial burden of state governments in India.'
Vij had last year pitched for declaring cow as the national animal and launched an online poll on the issue.
