NEW DELHI, July 4 (Xinhua) -- Police in Indian state of Haryana has set up round-the-clock helpline for people to report incidents of cow smuggling or slaughter in its jurisdiction, a local newspaper Indian Express said Monday.
The 24-hour helpline will pass on the information to the police officials that subsequently would send special teams to take cognizance of the offence.
The newspaper quotes Haryana police chief K P Singh as saying that barricades would also be put up to check cow smuggling.
Local government in Haryana, north of Indian capital New Delhi, last year passed a cow protection law which allows up to 10 years of imprisonment in case of cow slaughter. The helpline is aimed at helping police officials to enforce the law to curb the bovine smuggling.
Majority of Hindus consider cow to be sacred, and its slaughtering is banned in most Indian states. To defend the cows, groups under the patronage of rightwing Hindu organizations have come up in rural areas of India to protect them and stop sale of beef.
The vigilantism around cows however seems to have reinforced since 2014, the year Hindu nationalist Bhartiya Janta Party ascended to power under the leadership of Narendra Modi.
Beef however, is part of diet to many minority groups in the country, who consume it without any taboo.
Recently, Indian Express reported a video that showed activists from a fringe group called Gau Raksha Dal (Cow Protection group) forcing two men to eat concoction of cow dung and cow urine after they were allegedly caught with beef.
Cow slaughtering is a sensitive issue in India and sometimes flares up communal passions.
Last year, 50-year-old Mohammad Akhlaq was beaten to death and his son injured by a Hindu mob at Dadri in Uttar Pardesh over rumours that the family was eating beef.
