Police in northern India’s Uttar Pradesh state arrested 4 members of a right-wing Hindu group Wednesday ((April 12)) after charging that they slaughtered a cow close to town of Agra and tried to border some Muslims within the case, apparently to spur hostility towards Muslims.

The slaughter of cattle – thought-about sacred by Hindus — is banned in lots of Indian states, together with Uttar Pradesh, the place conviction can incur as much as 10 years imprisonment and a nice of as much as about $6,000.

Rakesh Kumar Singh, one of many assistant police commissioners in Agra, informed reporters April 8 that Jitendra Kushwaha, a senior chief of the Hindu right-wing group All India Hindu Mahasabha, or AIHM, filed a police grievance alleging that in the course of the early hours of March 30, he had witnessed the slaughtering of a cow by 4 Muslim males.

The group even staged an indication demanding arrest of the “Muslim culprits” — Mohammad Rizwan and his three sons.

The police arrested Rizwan and his sons, reserving them beneath the UP Prevention of Cow Slaughter Act. However, after investigating, the police decided that the 4 Muslims weren’t concerned with the case and that Sanjay Jat, an AIHM spokesperson, had hatched the conspiracy to slaughter the cow.

Homeless cows roam the streets of Hindu holy metropolis Mathura, north India, April 19, 2022. In Hindu-majority India, cow slaughter is banned in lots of states the place homeless cows roam within the open. (Shaikh Azizur Rahman/VOA)

On April 8, the police introduced that the 4 Muslims have been harmless and Hindu activists have been the culprits and could be arrested.

“Sanjay Jat is the main conspirator. His followers and friends slaughtered a cow…[and asked] Jitendra Kushwaha to file a case against Mohammad Rizwan [and other Muslims] … Later, the investigation revealed that the named accused had nothing to do with the crime,” Singh informed the Indian newspaper The Telegraph.

“Jitendra, Sanjay and a few others were near the spot of the cow slaughter, call records suggest, not those they named in the police complaint. Call records also show that the accused persons had not gone to that spot in over a month.”

In current years, in the course of the pageant of Ram Navami in India, communal stress typically breaks out between Hindus and Muslims. An unidentified police officer in Agra informed The Telegraph: “The cow was slaughtered on the eve of Ram Navami to disturb social harmony.”

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Jat, nevertheless, has insisted he’s harmless.

“Some of my rivals are trying to falsely implicate me and some of my colleagues in this case. We will conduct protest demonstrations if the case is not investigated properly,” Jat informed native TV channels.

Social activists mentioned that the Hindu right-wing group organized the killing of the cow in an try to border Muslims and incite Hindus towards them.

A weekly cow market in jap Indian state of West Bengal, June 15, 2022. (Shaikh Azizur Rahman/VOA)

The information of a cow being slaughtered on the behest of the leaders of the AIHM with an goal to create communal stress and use this as an excuse to do violence towards Muslims is no surprise, Delhi University professor and social activist Apoorvanand, who makes use of one title, informed VOA.

“This has been the modus operandi of the Hindu supremacist bodies for a long time. There are numerous cases of their people throwing beef in temples. Members of various Hindu supremacist groups have been caught planting the national flag of Pakistan at different places in India. And, they blamed all the acts on Muslims, to incite Hindus against Muslims,” Apoorvanand mentioned.

“They can go to any extent to defame Muslims and then attack them using that pretext.”

Kolkata-based social activist Malay Tewari mentioned that there are scores of situations of “false-flag operations” by Hindu right-wing group activists in India.

“Through such false-flag operations, the Hindu right-wing groups, who work like foot soldiers of India’s ruling BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party], aim to whip up anti-Muslim passion to polarize Hindus against Muslims. India is a Hindu-majority country. A polarization on communal lines immensely helps Hindu nationalist BJP garner more votes from the majority community,” Tewari informed VOA.

“In a cow slaughter case, Muslims are usually convicted to the strictest punishment of jail terms and fines. Let us see if the Hindu right-wing activists in the Agra case are awarded the same level of punishment, too,” he mentioned.