Indian State Is Expanding Penalty for Killing a Cow to Life in Prison<br />The penalty for transporting beef was also raised to a maximum of 10 years, from three,<br />and the state authorities will now be allowed to confiscate any vehicle used to transport beef, said Babubhai Bokhiriya, the state minister of animal husbandry and water resources.<br />The move on Friday came after a government crackdown on the largely Muslim-run buffalo slaughterhouses in the state of Uttar Pradesh<br />and after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P., won the state’s elections in a landslide.<br />By NIDA NAJAR and SUHASINI RAJMARCH 31, 2017<br />NEW DELHI — The Indian state of Gujarat is tightening the punishment for the slaughter<br />of cows, considered sacred in Hinduism, to a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.<br />Vijay Rupani, the chief minister of Gujarat, posted on Twitter<br />that the new laws, which were passed by the state assembly and will need to be signed by the governor, Om Prakash Kohli, were among the most restrictive in India.<br />It is legal to slaughter buffalo cows after they no longer produce milk,<br />but Hindu activists in Uttar Pradesh said the industry masked the illicit slaughter of cows.<br />has passed this bill to get votes." Gujarat, long a stronghold of the right-wing Bharatiya<br />Janata Party, is scheduled to hold state elections at the end of the year.
