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

Clasping her two-month-old daughter close to her chest, Manori Bibi sits silently inside her mud house. Her face is expressionless even as her baby’s first social smile flickers across her face. Under a thatched roof riddled with holes, torn apart not by a storm, but by poverty, Manori’s life appears more difficult than it already was in Astia village of northern Odisha’s Balasore district.

Her husband, Seikh Mukander Mohammed, a 35-year-old mason, whose meagre daily wages kept the household afloat, died on January 14. His life was allegedly taken after he was lynched by gau rakshaks (cow protectionists), who operate openly in vigilante groups predominantly across Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled States.

Odisha has recorded an average of about 20 cow-related episodes of obstruction and violence in a month since mid-2025, as per the Odisha Police’s Crime Branch. Typically, groups that operate in the name of preventing alleged cattle smuggling obstruct vehicles carrying cattle. They call the police thereafter. After Mukander’s death, the police in Keonjhar, the home district of Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi, launched multi-district raids to dismantle organised cow smuggling.

Rizwan, a resident of the village and a photographer with an Odia daily, says Mukander’s family now faces a double battle: “They will grapple with both social stigma and deepening financial distress.”

In the early hours

Mukander was born and raised in Astia village, 12 kilometres from Balasore town and about 15 km from Chandipur’s Integrated Test Range, India’s premier missile testing centre. Astia’s lanes tell a different story from many rural settlements: Hindu and Muslim households sit side by side, often within 50 metres of each other. With no agricultural land to inherit, Mukander turned to daily-wage labour. Over time, he picked up masonry skills, earning about ₹100 more a day than an unskilled labourer. The improvement did little to ease the family’s precarity.

“On average, my brother got work for barely 18 days a month at ₹500 a day. For the remaining days, he did odd jobs to survive,” says his younger brother, Seikh Jitender Mohammed. Their father is bedridden. January 14, 2026, was Makar Sankranti, a major Hindu harvest festival. It would mean almost a complete halt to construction work in the area. With no wages for the day, Mukander needed alternative work.

His mother, Manwari Bibi, recalls that he received a phone call in the early hours of the day. “He was asked to accompany a fish-laden pick-up van to its destination, and was promised ₹1,000. He accepted gladly,” she says. Mukander left home between 2.30 a.m. and 3 a.m. Manori says the family had borrowed money from two self-help groups, and the debt had climbed to ₹90,000. “Work comes rarely. When it does, you cannot refuse,” she says.

A few hours later, the family received frantic phone calls from villagers saying Mukander had met with an accident, she says. By the time they reached Jaydev Kasaba, where the pick-up van had skidded off the road, Mukander had already been shifted to the hospital by the police. He died later that afternoon.

Initially, the police treated the case as cattle smuggling having gone wrong. “An injured cow was found near the vehicle, so we invoked provisions of the Odisha Prevention of Cow Slaughter Act, 1960; the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960; and relevant Sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023,” says Debajyoti Dash, Additional Superintendent of Police, Balasore.

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

Mukander’s brother Jitender filed a complaint, following which the police registered a new case under Section 103(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, dealing with mob lynching. “We have arrested six persons in connection with the incident. The investigation is ongoing, and no one will be spared,” says Balasore Superintendent of Police Pratyush Diwaker. A resident living near Jaydev Kasaba, the site of the incident, about 10 km from Mukander’s home, says there were nearly 10 men who intercepted the van in the early hours of the morning.

On the streets

Odisha Police’s Crime Branch records show a recurring pattern: cattle-laden vans being waylaid and frisked by vigilante groups. In November 2025 alone, at least 20 cattle transport vehicles were tracked down by the groups across different parts of the State. In several instances, the groups were linked to Hindu organisations, say the police.

On November 5, 2025, acting on information provided by members of the Hindu Ekta Manch, a group for a Hindu rashtra (nation), the police say they seized four bullocks and arrested a man from Barbil in Keonjhar district. Four days later, on November 9, a Bajrang Dal member filmed the alleged slaughter of a cow in Jagatsinghpur district, following which a case was registered at Balikuda police station.

On November 14, Bajrang Dal members intercepted another cattle van in Bhadrak, rescuing eight animals, say the police. On November 18, gau rakshaks alerted Khordha police about a truck allegedly carrying 12 buffaloes. Yet again, on November 21, Bajrang Dal members intercepted a cattle vehicle in the Sukinda area of Jajpur district, leading to the seizure of 12 cattle.

September 2025 saw cattle transport vehicles being intercepted on 26 occasions across Odisha. In at least 8 of these cases, including 6 involving Bajrang Dal members, and one each involving the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and gau rakshaks, the groups reached the spot before they alerted the police.

Police records show that 30 cases related to cattle transportation were registered in August 2025. On August 4, a BJP zilla parishad member tipped off authorities about the assembly of 21 cows in the Sinapali area of Nuapada district. According to police documents, at least 15 people associated with Sangh Parivar organisations, including the VHP, Bajrang Dal, and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, had first confronted a person linked to the cattle before the police stepped in and formally registered a case.

However, while police reports routinely acknowledge the role of these groups in intercepting cattle vehicles, they rarely document whether violence preceded their arrival on the scene. Some of those caught were Hindus.

In 2021, as many as 80 incidents of Hindu-Muslim tension were recorded, 35 of them triggered by issues related to cows, including alleged trafficking and slaughter. The number of communal incidents stood at 58 in 2022, and rose sharply to 85 in 2023 with cow-related issues emerging as the flashpoint in 30 and 60 cases respectively. By July 2024, up to 65 Hindu-Muslim incidents had already been reported, of which 49 were centred on cow-related disputes.

As Mukander’s death triggered outrage, gau rakshaks denied any role in the violence that led to his killing. “We have grown into an organised group of volunteers who only inform the police about cow transportation and slaughter. We have never been involved in violence,” says Jitendra Swain, secretary of Maa Bharati Go Seva Kendra in Balasore, which claims to shelter nearly 3,000 stray cattle.

According to Swain, around 30 gau rakshaks and a much larger number of gau sevaks (servants) are active in the district. “We not only hand over those involved in cow trading to the police, but we also follow the cases to their logical conclusion. We ensure the police do not dilute cases at any stage of the investigation, and we even fight cases in court so that culprits do not go unpunished,” he says. Swain claims public support is growing. “The winds of change have started blowing. More people are coming forward to fund efforts to save cows in Odisha,” he says.

Operating extra-constitutionally

Human rights activists express serious concern over the violence that often precedes police action in cases of alleged cattle trading. “We have a more than 60-year-old law in the form of the Orissa Prevention of Cow Slaughter Act, 1960. Where does it mention the role of cow vigilantes? Who has given them the power to assault people, even if they are on the wrong side of the law?” says Biswapriya Kanungo, a human rights lawyer.

Kanungo says gau rakshaks are exercising “private-army-like” powers. “If they are such nationalists, how many ganja-laden trucks have they intercepted? What have they done to stop the theft of minerals from the State?” he says. By seeking assistance from gau rakshaks to curb cattle transportation while turning a blind eye to their high-handedness, Kanungo says, the police appear to have effectively let these forces loose on the streets of Odisha.

The Balasore district police cannot remember gau rakshaks ever being educated on their role as informers rather than street-level enforcers. “During the Ama Police meetings, we do discuss the duties and responsibilities of citizens. People are informed about the repercussions of taking the law into their own hands,” says Balasore SP Diwaker.

Kowtowing to the cow

The killing on the streets of Balasore failed to provoke much of a political response. Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee president Bhakta Charan Das addressed a press conference to condemn the killing of Mukander while the Biju Janata Dal dispatched a State-level delegation to Astia village five days later to meet the bereaved family. A team from the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) also visited the family. Beyond these gestures, however, there was little evidence of sustained political agitation or serious efforts to hold the administration accountable.

In the third week of January, the focus of public attention shifted. Keonjhar police launched one of the largest crackdowns on alleged cattle smugglers in recent memory, conducting raids across Keonjhar, Mayurbhanj, Bhadrak, and Jajpur districts. The police seized ₹1.4 crore in cash, 1 kilogram of gold, and 3 kg of silver. They arrested 9 people linked to the cattle trade. The scale of the operation dominated headlines, while Mukander’s death was pushed to the margins.

Amplifying the police action, Animal Husbandry Minister Gokula Nanda Mallik told PTI that the government was acting firmly against cattle smuggling. “Properties worth more than ₹50 crore belonging to cattle traders have been confiscated. The Chief Minister has instructed officials to keep a close watch on cattle smuggling,” he said.

On the alleged involvement of gau rakshaks in violence, Mallik said the cow protection was linked to “religious sentiment and asmita” (pride), adding that while social activists often assist the police, “they should not take the law into their own hands”. Addressing the Fisheries and Livestock Conclave, Chief Minister Majhi warned cattle smugglers, saying strict action would be taken against them. Revenue and Disaster Minister Suresh Pujari announced that cow shelters would be constructed across the State. For this, the government would provide the land.

Edited by Sunalini Mathew