NEW DELHI: A Muslim man died after he was attacked by hundreds of Hindu vigilantes while transporting cows in India, police said on Wednesday, as tensions rose over the slaughter of an animal Hindus consider sacred.

No arrests had immediately been made, but police said they had registered a murder case over 55-year-old Pehlu Khan’s death in hospital on Monday, two days after a mob attacked his cattle truck on a highway in Alwar in Rajasthan.

At least six more people were injured when the truck was attacked by around 200 Hindu fanatics, who police are still trying to identify.

But police also said they were preparing a case against the survivors of the attack, whom they suspect of trying to smuggle the cattle across state borders.

Cows are considered sacred in Hindu-majority India, where squads of Hindu vigilantes roam highways inspecting livestock trucks for any trace of the animal.

Slaughtering cows is illegal in many Indian states and some also require a licence for transporting them across state borders.

Alwar police chief Rahul Prakash said the victim and his associates were returning to their home state of Haryana when the mob intercepted their vehicle.

Prakash said the six others had now been discharged from hospital, adding that a post-mortem would determine the cause of Khan’s death. “We are yet to receive the post-mortem report but he had multiple rib fractures,” the officer said.

Another officer, Ramesh Chand Sinsinwar, said that police were preparing a case against the survivors. “They were carrying eight bovines in the mini truck without permission. We will file a case against the survivors after concluding our investigations,” said the lead investigator in the case.

Rajasthan’s Home Minister Gulab Chand Kataria told reporters that both sides were to blame for the incident. “It is illegal to transport cows, but people ignore it and cow protectors are trying to stop such people from trafficking them,” Kataria told reporters.

At least 10 Muslim men have been killed in similar incidents across the country by Hindu mobs on suspicion of eating beef or smuggling cows in the last two years.

In 2015, a Muslim man was lynched by his neighbours over rumours that he had slaughtered a cow. Police later said the meat was mutton.

Published in Dawn, April 6th, 2017