This article includes data from Justice Delayed, an ongoing project by the author to create a database of criminal cases from more than 650 district courts in India. 

On the night of Sept. 29, 2008, an explosion ripped through a crowded area in the predominantly Muslim city of Malegaon, Maharashtra in India, killing six people and injuring more than a hundred others. Investigators alleged that the blast was triggered by a bomb planted in a motorcycle registered to Pragya Chandrapalsingh Thakur, then a 38-year-old nun and Hindutva (or Hindu nationalist) activist. 

Thakur was the most high profile of the seven people arrested and charged for their alleged involvement in the blast. Almost 17 years later, all of the accused have been acquitted, with the judge reportedly saying that the prosecution could not prove that the bomb was fitted to the  motorcycle or that it belonged to Thakur.

Appearing in court on Thursday, Thakur reportedly told the judge that the investigation had “ruined [her] life”. She was quoted by several outlets saying that she had been “arrested and tortured” by investigators. She also hailed her acquittal as a “victory of Hindutva”.

Meanwhile, the advocate for the victims’ families has reportedly vowed to challenge the acquittals in India’s High Court.

Thakur’s court appearance on Thursday was a rare one: she has been notably absent for most of the trial, citing medical reasons including brain swelling, impaired sight, and a doctor advising bed rest “due to multiple ailments”.

Although attending hearings related to her case was a key condition of her bail, a Bellingcat analysis of documents from the NIA special court shows she was recorded as present at only three of the 162 court appointments that focused on final arguments of the case, from July 24, 2024 to May 8, 2025.

As of publication, Thakur has not replied to multiple requests for comment over email, text messages, and social media about her absences from court. One of her lawyers, Advocate JP Mishra, told Bellingcat that he only has the contact number of Thakur’s personal assistant, and not of Thakur herself.  

Thakur has been on bail since April 2017, when organised crime charges against her were dropped by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), a state police body. A year later, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) – the main counter-terrorism investigation agency in India – initiated a new case against Thakur and six others over their alleged involvement in the same incident.

In 2019, Thakur was elected as a Member of Parliament for the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh under the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and served five years in the role before stepping down in 2024 at the end of her term. 

Pragya Thakur: Murder Suspect Turned Politician

This is the second criminal case where Thakur has been charged, and then acquitted due to a lack of evidence.

She was previously accused, then acquitted in 2017, of being one of eight people involved in the December 2007 murder of Sunil Joshi, reportedly a close aide of Thakur before they fell out. 

Joshi was a suspect in the 2007 Samjhauta Express train bombing which killed 68 people, mostly Pakistan citizens. Based on local reports, the court acquitted Thakur and her co-accused after finding the case was not investigated with the “required seriousness” by the NIA and state police, who it said produced “weak and self-contradictory evidences”. Thakur was not present in court when the verdict for this case was delivered.

When the BJP fielded her as a candidate in the 2019 general elections, Thakur had been accused of terrorism, murder and criminal conspiracy over the 2008 Malegaon blast.

Nisar Ahmed Sayyed Bilal, whose son was one of the victims of the Malegaon bombing, filed an application in the trial court to prevent her from running in the election, but this was dismissed.

Thakur won her seat by a wide margin against her opponent – a two-time chief minister of the state – and served as a member of parliament for five years.

While in office, Thakur continued to be a controversial figure. She was often quoted making incendiary comments against the country’s minority Muslim community, including accusing them of “love jihad” and encouraging Hindus to arm themselves against Muslims by sharpening their kitchen knives. This was despite the fact that she was representing a constituency with a significantly Muslim population of more than half a million, as of the latest 2011 census data.

In one of her speeches delivered in parliament in December 2023, Thakur criticised the previous government for allowing Muslims accused of crimes to secure bail “despite being criminals”, even though she was out on bail herself.

She has also been quoted in reports claiming that cow urine can protect against Covid-19 and that the same substance had cured her breast cancer. However, a surgeon who operated on her was quoted in an interview saying that she underwent a mastectomy for the latter condition. One of her lawyers, Advocate JP Mishra, also told Bellingcat that Thakur had two surgeries while in jail, and one after her release, to fight cancer.

The verdict on Thursday marks the end of one of the longest-running terrorism trials in the country.

Procedural delays are not uncommon in India’s justice system – it reportedly has a staggering backlog of 50 million pending cases – but Bellingcat’s analysis found that this case took much longer than other similar ones under India’s anti-terror Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). Data from the NIA special court, which only deals with charges under the UAPA, shows that five other trials it recorded as completed as of July 25 this year were decided in an average of 19.6 months. The Malegaon case was heard 1,187 times over a period of 84 months before Thursday’s verdict was delivered.

Getting the Data

In India’s justice system, each case before a court is assigned a unique Case Number Record (CNR), which is used for all documents related to that case. 

The CNR may change if the case is transferred between courts. For example, the Malegaon case had a different CNR in the 10 years that it was being investigated by the ATS before it was handed over to the NIA.

Searching the eCourts website for case number MHCC020159052016, the CNR assigned to the proceedings for the NIA special court case, returned 1,187 unique court records from July 5, 2018 to May 8, 2025.

We focused on the hearings that took place after final arguments began on July 24, 2024, up to May 8, 2025, when the verdict was initially scheduled to be delivered. The May 8 hearing was postponed to July 31, and there were no other court appearances recorded between then and Thursday’s verdict. 

Of the 162 court records of the case we extracted for this period, one case from October 17, 2024 had no notes recorded in the documents, making it impossible to determine if Thakur was present or not. 

For the remaining 161 documents, we manually checked the text to determine if Thakur was recorded as present. The full dataset of these documents, as well as the assessment by two independent coders (the author and editor of this story), can be accessed here. 

Our analysis showed that Thakur was recorded as present on only three occasions during this period – first on January 30, 2024, more than six months after the final arguments began, at a hearing the next day, and again on May 8 this year when the verdict was originally scheduled to be delivered.

Medical Reasons Cited for Absences

Court documents and local reports show that Thakur’s absence from proceedings for this case dates back years. While the court has accepted medical certificates produced by her advocates, the judges presiding over the case have also repeatedly noted her absences, with one judge specifically stating in 2019 that she should be in court at least once a week. In December 2020, the prosecution argued that it appeared as if she was deliberately avoiding appearing in court.  

“It seems that they have taken the legal process and court for granted,” Advocate Shahid Nadeem, a representative for the victims, told Bellingcat in an email prior to the verdict. 

A timeline of Thakur’s court attendance during the final arguments:

Thakur has maintained that her absences from court were justified by medical reasons, including conditions she claims were caused by “torture” while in custody of the ATS. During her term as an MP, the court also granted exemptions to her court appearance based on her lawyers’ arguments that she needed to attend parliamentary sessions.

On Sept. 3, 2024, Thakur’s lawyers filed for an exemption for her appearance in court, saying she was “suffering from neurological problem with swelling in brain and is unable to see properly”. The court approved the application on the condition that exemptions were filed for each day the case was heard until Thakur appeared, stating that she should appear at the latest by Sept. 18. 

A week after this application, on Sept. 10, a local BJP leader from Bhopal posted a video on Instagram showing Thakur attending a groundbreaking ceremony for a temple in the Madhya Pradesh city. Bellingcat was unable to independently verify when this groundbreaking ceremony took place, and whether it was during the period that Thakur’s lawyers said she was seriously ill. Bellingcat emailed Kishan Suryavanshi, the local leader who posted the video, to ask when it was recorded, but did not receive a reply as of publication. 

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On Sept. 18, Thakur’s lawyers filed another application saying that she had been moved from a hospital in Bhopal to one in Meerut, in the neighbouring Uttar Pradesh state. The application said her medical condition had deteriorated, that she was “unable to see properly” and that it would take a “long time” for her recovery. The court approved this application, with the same condition that her lawyers must file exemptions for each hearing that she was absent from court, until a latest date of Sept. 30. 

When yet another application was filed for similar reasons on Sept. 30, Special Judge AK Lahoti warned that Thakur should appear by Oct. 3, or a court order would be issued. One of Thakur’s lawyers began making final arguments for her case that day. 

Despite this warning, the judge continued to grant exemption applications made for Thakur throughout October, as final arguments specific to the charges against her continued in court. Finally, on Nov. 5, 2024, Lahoti rejected an application by Thakur’s lawyers to exempt her from court yet again. 

This application, according to the court documents, was filed with a photocopy of a medical certificate showing that Thakur was undergoing “panchkarm treatment”. This may refer to Panchakarma, a type of Ayurvedic or alternative medical treatment. Mishra, Thakur’s lawyer, told Bellingcat that Thakur was in an Ayurvedic hospital in Meerut at the time.

In response, Lahoti issued a bailable warrant of 10,000 Indian Rupees (US$114) for Thakur, stating that the final hearing would proceed and that Thakur’s presence “is necessary”. A bailable warrant is a warrant for arrest that allows the accused to be released if bail is paid to guarantee their appearance in court. 

The next day, a photo of Thakur was posted to her X profile, with her face looking slightly swollen. In the caption, she seemed to blame the Indian National Congress for “torture” and “suffering”, including brain swelling as well as hearing and visual impairment. The last line of her post, in Hindi, translates to, “If I live through this, I will definitely go to court.” 

‘No Special Treatment’

Thakur’s trial has been a controversial one. In 2015, the former special public prosecutor (SPP) assigned to the case, Rohini Salian, said the NIA had asked her to “go soft” on the case, an allegation the agency denied. 

Nadeem, the advocate for the victims, told Bellingcat: “As far as the appearance of the accused during the trial, NIA’s prosecutor has not taken objection to the exemption application of the accused on most of the occasions.” 

“Victims have limited rights in criminal trials,” he said. 

Bellingcat contacted three senior officials in the NIA vertical of the Counter Terrorism and Counter Radicalization Division, which is part of the Ministry of Home Affairs of India, asking to discuss how the agency viewed Thakur’s absence from court. As of publication, the officials had not replied to multiple emails. 

The current SPP Avinash Rasal told Bellingcat that Thakur had provided medical reasons for her absences during the final arguments and that her reasons were considered by the court. “At no time the case was stalled due to non-appearance of the accused. Their advocates always remained present,” he added. 

Bellingcat’s analysis shows that Thakur’s advocates were recorded as present at all 161 hearings after final arguments began.

On at least two occasions in October 2024, the judge accepted the exemptions filed for her absence while noting that her advocates were present and her absence was “not causing any hurdle in the smooth trial”. The same judge, however, also said the next month that her presence was necessary for the final arguments.

Rasal said there was “no pressure” on the prosecution due to Thakur’s position as a member of parliament. 

“No special treatment was given to anyone.”

Galen Reich designed the scrolling timeline for this piece.

Bellingcat is a non-profit and the ability to carry out our work is dependent on the kind support of individual donors. If you would like to support our work, you can do so here. You can also subscribe to our Patreon channel here. Subscribe to our Newsletter and follow us on Twitter here and Mastodon here.

The post Former Indian MP’s Terror Trial Was Largely Conducted in Her Absence appeared first on bellingcat.

This article is a collaboration with Alt News, a non-profit fact-checking website in India. Read the article on Alt News’ website here.

They describe themselves as “cow protectors” or “gau rakshaks” in Hindi. On social media, they often post about carrying out charitable work such as operating ambulances for sick or injured cows, feeding stray animals and distributing food to people.

But in the dark of the night, their work takes on a more violent edge. Multiple photos and videos show members of “cow protection” groups chasing, shooting at and beating up truck drivers they claim are “smuggling” cows for slaughter. 

Cows are considered sacred in Hinduism, the dominant religion in India. Many states in the country prohibit the slaughter of cows and have strict laws on the transportation, sale and purchase of cattle. These laws have become more stringent since the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came into power in 2014.

The vigilantes attacking truck drivers tend to be closely aligned with hardline Hindu nationalist organisations, and a majority of their victims are Muslims. And while they claim to be doing this for the sake of the cows, in some of the videos the animals can also be seen injured from vehicles overturning during aggressive chases. 

Elaine Pearson, Asia Director at Human Rights Watch, told Bellingcat that cow protection has become part of the political agenda of leaders of the BJP and in some cases they have backed the alleged actions of the suspects “while the police have failed to take action against them”.

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Bellingcat and our partners at the Indian outlet Alt News found videos on social media showing violent assaults by members of five self-described animal welfare groups, mainly operating in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana where incidents involving cow-related violence have frequently been reported. 

(Editor’s note: We are not sharing links to these videos to avoid amplifying content depicting violent attacks seemingly targeting minority groups. However, if you are a journalist or researcher interested in obtaining this dataset, please email inquiries@bellingcat.com.)

Some of the leaders of these vigilante groups, when we reached out to them, claimed that they were working closely with the local police. One even received an award for “cow and social service” from a cabinet minister, alongside police officers. Senior police officers from the districts that these groups operate in did not answer questions about alleged police support for the cow vigilantes when we could reach them. 

While these groups most likely only represent a small fraction of the “cow vigilantes” in India, who have been reported on by the media and human rights groups in the country for years, our investigation sheds more light on how they informally work together to carry out mob violence against truck drivers.

Akhil Bharatiya Gau Seva Samiti (ABGS)

In a video uploaded in February this year, several men in cars are seen chasing a truck down a highway at night. A man from one of the cars pulls out a shotgun and fires at the truck. Police sirens can be heard in the background but law enforcement does not appear to interfere. 

Akhil Bharatiya Gau Seva Samiti (ABGS), which uploaded the car chase video, is a trust – a non-profit organisation (NPO) formed to promote charitable activities. It was established in 2022, according to the Indian government’s non-profit database. ABGS is based in Vrindavan, Mathura district in the state of Uttar Pradesh. 

While its day job may seem to be “animal welfare”, videos of its members terrorising truck drivers at night are routine and oftentimes, promoted by the trust itself. 

ABGS president Bharat Gautam shared a post in November 2024 that shows a smashed-up car, with a sign for “Akhil Bhrataiya Gau Seva Samiti” on top of it, after what he described in Hindi as a “heavy encounter with cow smugglers”. 

Alt News spoke to Gautam, who said that cows are “not an animal”, but a mother figure in Hinduism.

Gautam claimed that his team works closely with Vrindavan police to save cows from being slaughtered for meat. “We either pass on the information we receive [about trucks transporting cattle] to the police and they accompany us in our pursuit or we patrol areas we know are frequented by cow smugglers,” he said, adding that the police register cases against the drivers based on complaints filed by his team once the vehicle is caught. Multiple calls by Alt News to the Vrindavan police station’s general line, as well as to the direct lines of senior police officials from the district, to request for comment on ABGS’ claims went unanswered. 

“We help the administration but they can’t do everything so it’s also our duty to protect our religion, our mother,” said Gautam.

However, videos shared by his team reveal that the cows they claim to rescue are also frequently injured during their car chases. For example, a video from February last year shows a pick-up truck that had overturned apparently as a result of being pursued, causing the cattle inside to fall onto the road. The video shows three men sitting on the ground, looking gravely injured, and several people hitting them while posing for photos. Meanwhile, the cows can be seen sprawled on the side of the road, also apparently injured.

Gautam’s team operates in Uttar Pradesh, which is one of at least 20 out of 28 states in India that either partially or completely bans the slaughter of cows and the sale of beef. When Alt News asked Gautam about his team’s use of violence, he shifted the blame onto the truck drivers. “Cow smugglers collide with our cars … shoot at us,” he said.

ABGS’ headquarters are located in Vrindavan city’s Venkatesh Temple. When Alt News contacted the temple, they claimed to have no connection with the group. “We only rent out a space,” a temple staff member said. 

Gautam told Alt News that the temple does offer some support to his team, including manpower and financial assistance. But he maintained that most of their work was self-funded and denied receiving any government aid or donations, despite the trust having appealed for donations on social media.

His “cow protection” activities have also won him recognition from the Uttar Pradesh government. In January last year, he received an award for “cow and social service” from a cabinet minister in the state. For this, he was congratulated in the presence of the district magistrate of Mathura city, who is responsible for maintaining law and order in the district, and Mathura police. 

Multiple calls made to senior police officers in Mathura district went either unanswered or the officers did not comment when asked about the Mathura police’s relationship with Gautam and whether they supported cow vigilantism.

Team Sonu Hindu Palwal

While ABGS’ vigilante activities have been particularly visible on social media, our investigations found it is part of a network of local groups based in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana. In a video uploaded on June 27, Gautam says that cow vigilantes have been working under the guidance of one “Sonu Hindu Palwal” the past five years. 

In March, videos shared by ABGS and several related cow vigilante groups show cars chasing a truck, and two men being brutally beaten and kicked.

Bellingcat geolocated the incident to a location outside a police station in Beri in the state of Haryana based on the trees, lamp posts and a temple seen in one of these videos, posted by a member of “Team Sonu Hindu Palwal”.

This location matches reports of an attack that took place in Beri on March 9, where eight men  were arrested after a police officer on the scene filed a complaint. The officer’s complaint stated that the mob shouted “we will not leave you Muslims alive today” while beating up the two men from the truck. 

A man who goes only by one name, Sonu – his official name listed on court documents – was among the eight arrested. He operates a team named after himself called “Team Sonu Hindu Palwal”. Palwal is the district in Haryana state where his team primarily operates.

Sonu told Bellingcat that he is the Palwal district president of Gau Raksha Dal (GRD) – literally “cow protection” unit – an NPO established in 2012. The GRD is one of the largest cow protection networks in India, and its leader told Human Rights Watch in 2017 that the network’s volunteers have a presence in nearly every state.

When asked about the incident in Beri, Sonu said that while they were chasing the truck drivers, the truck collided with another car, and the passengers of that car beat up the truck drivers. “We were blamed”, he said – even though videos of the assault were shared by members of his own team.  

Bellingcat also showed Sonu several videos posted by cow vigilante groups including Team Bharat Gautam that either tagged Team Sonu Hindu or mentioned them in their captions. These videos showed men surrounded by members of the cow vigilante groups, who were hitting them or otherwise treating them roughly. Sonu was personally seen posing for a group photo in one of these videos, even though he wasn’t shown assaulting anyone. When shown these videos, Sonu denied that his team beat people up.

The cow vigilante leader did not directly respond to our questions about what he thought about violence committed by members of his team, but said: “Do whatever you want. Our job is to save cows and we will continue to do so.”

The day after his arrest in Beri, videos of Sonu’s supporters celebrating his release began circulating on Instagram. He and others from his team were paraded in a car with garlands around their necks and a procession followed them while dancing to “Hindutva pop”, a genre of music associated with the Hindu far-right which carries lyrics with anti-Muslim rhetoric.

The men beaten up by Sonu and his team in March were arrested after a counter-complaint under animal cruelty and cow protection laws was filed against them.

When Alt News called the police station’s number, the police personnel who answered did not seem to know whether the two men seen being attacked in the video were still in jail. One of them said that the case has been transferred to the crime unit but was unable to provide any details of the investigating officers. 

However, bail orders for the two men who were beaten up, which Bellingcat found on the district court website of Palwal, indicated that they each spent at least two months in custody before being released on bail.

Alt News spoke to Sonu who said that his team is tipped off by “informants” whenever cows are being transported, receiving details such as the vehicle’s route and licence plate number. 

According to Sonu, the rescued cows are taken to shelters, while the people transporting them are handed over to the police. He said that the police sometimes show up after a vehicle is intercepted, but at other times the police are with the gau rakshaks during these incidents. 

Alt News’ questions to the Additional Superintendent of Police, Palwal about Sonu’s claim that the police accompanies his team in their pursuits of truck drivers went unanswered.

Bellingcat also found links between Team Sonu and a Mumbai-registered charitable trust, through a photo Sonu posted showing a large truck which he described as an “ambulance for sick or injured cows in Palwal”. There is a Google Pay number shown on the vehicle for receiving donations.

The signage on the ambulance says the service is “courtesy of” an organisation called “Shri Mahesh Chand Dalmia Charitable Trust”, which appears to be a misspelling of “Shri Mahesh Chandra Dalmia Charitable Trust”, a registered trust based in Mumbai. 

Sonu told Alt News that Shri Mahesh Chandra Dalmia Charitable Trust supported his team’s ambulance after local priests in Vrindavan introduced the organisation to his work. 

According to the government’s NPO database, the trust works in the sectors of “Education & Literacy, Any Other, Health & Family Welfare”. The trustee, or person who manages the trust, is listed as Satyadeo Banka. 

Banka is regularly tagged on Facebook in videos of Team Sonu’s attacks on truck drivers. His posts on the platform also frequently promote ideas in line with Hindutva, a nationalist ideology that advocates for establishing India as a Hindu nation-state. 

We attempted to contact Banka on social media but did not receive any response. Alt News contacted the trust’s president, Rahul Dalmia, on the phone and emailed him about his organisation’s relationship with Team Sonu Hindu Palwal, asking whether he was aware of the group’s violent activities and Banka being tagged in their “cow protection” videos. Dalmia declined to be quoted when asked about the trust’s work over the phone, and did not respond, as of the time of publication, to further questions over email about whether the trust supported cow vigilantes in any way.

Live For Nation 

In 2021, Sonu congratulated someone he referred to as “LFN’s Parveen” for joining the Haryana government’s cow protection force, in a post on Facebook. LFN is the abbreviation of “Live For Nation”, a registered NPO in Haryana’s Faridabad which aims to “save cows”. This group was also involved in a car chase last year that resulted in the death of a 20-year-old man.

On Aug. 23, 2024, Aryan Mishra, 20, was out with his friends on a drive when five cow vigilantes – all LFN members – allegedly “mistook” them to be cattle smugglers and began chasing their car before firing at them. Mishra was killed in the incident. 

One of the accused who was arrested, Anil Kaushik, reportedly told Mishra’s father that he thought the boy was Muslim and regretted killing a Brahmin, the highest ranking caste in the Hindu caste system. Kaushik identified himself as a member of Haryana government’s special cow protection task force, which Parveen is also a part of. 

His full name is Parveen Vashisth and his Facebook bio says that he is a member of the Haryana government’s “special cow protection task force”. Vashisth also names the task force while sharing videos on Instagram of cow vigilantes from Team Sonu Hindu chasing trucks. 

Alt News reached out to the “Haryana Gau Seva Aayog”, the government body responsible for overseeing the task force. Its chairman, Sharwan Garg, said that anyone can engage in cow protection work independently, provided they stay “within the limits of the law and coordinate with the authorities”.

However, Vashisth’s videos on Instagram showing Team Sonu Hindu chasing after trucks, shooting at them and assaulting drivers appear to show that these “limits” are often breached.

Gau Seva Mission

Another organisation that claims to work for cow welfare and operates in the same network uploaded a video on Jan. 9, 2025, showing vigilantes capturing a man they claimed was a “cow smuggler”. In multiple videos, the man looks gravely injured and bloody. His vehicle is also badly damaged. 

The organisation, “Gau Seva Mission”, is based in Vrindavan, like ABGS. Its leader, Govind Singh, is frequently tagged in videos of attacks on alleged “cow smugglers” along with Bharat Gautam, Sonu and Parveen Vashisth. 

Singh told Alt News that he is a veterinary doctor by profession and bears most of Gau Seva Mission’s expenses through his private work. 

Gau Seva Mission appears to be known to the Uttar Pradesh government. In November last year, Singh uploaded photos and videos of the chairperson of the Uttar Pradesh government’s cow service commission visiting his office. 

Singh told Alt News he used to be a member of the GRD – the NPO that Sonu is a member of – but left the organisation to start his own group, although he did not say when this was. One of Singh’s Facebook posts from three years ago gives the helpline number of GRD’s Vrindavan branch – the same number is now the helpline number of Gau Seva Mission. Its office also used to be at the same address as the office of the Vrindavan branch of GRD at least until March 2022, according to older images of the location on Singh’s Facebook account. 

Gau Vansh Sewa Dham

Another organisation that claims to be involved in animal welfare but whose leader has been involved in cow-related violence is “Gau Vansh Sewa Dham”, in Haryana’s Faridabad. It is run by Shiva Dahiya, who told Alt News that the group runs a hospital for cows.

Videos of injured cows being treated are all over the Facebook page of the organisation, and Gau Vansh Sewa Dham makes regular appeals for donations to support their rescue and relief efforts. Dahiya said that the money for his organisation’s work is raised from the community. 

Posts on Instagram that tag Dahiya show him seemingly participating in or being present at the scene of vigilante attacks targeting those transporting cattle. For example, one post from February shows him holding tire puncture spikes to stop a truck. In another, he is seen pulling an injured man, who was slumped over, up by his hair so his face was visible as a group of vigilantes – also including Sonu – posed for a picture with several captured men. 

However, when Alt News asked if the car chases ever got violent, Dahiya said, “We don’t want to do any wrong by our hands”. And when asked if he had ever done anything wrong, he replied, “By the grace of God, never.”

Dahiya denied there was any violence committed by “cow protectors”.

“We never beat anyone,” he told Alt News.

Shalaka Shinde contributed research to this piece.

Bellingcat is a non-profit and the ability to carry out our work is dependent on the kind support of individual donors. If you would like to support our work, you can do so here. You can also subscribe to our Patreon channel here. Subscribe to our Newsletter and follow us on Twitter here and Mastodon here.

The post Violence in the Name of Cows: The ‘Animal Welfare’ Groups That Beat Up Truck Drivers in India appeared first on bellingcat.