Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh: “Gau hamari mata hai, police hamara baap hai.”
“Gau mata ki jai!”
The cow is our mother. The police are our father. Hail mother cow!
These were the slogans that the police forced five Muslim men accused of cow slaughter to chant, as they flogged and paraded them in the quiet town of Damoh in central Madhya Pradesh (MP) on 7 March 2025.
Within 12 hours of the incident, their homes were declared ‘illegal’ and demolished by the district administration in Damoh, home to 147,000, according to the 2011 census.
Over a month earlier, on 31 January 2025, almost 320 km south of Damoh, when two Hindus, identified as Ballu Padahe (60) and his son Virendra Pahade (35), were found with over 65 kg of beef, police arrested both and sent them to jail without a public spectacle.
The high court granted Ballu Padahe bail on 7 March, after 35 days in prison.
The two incidents made clear the selective approach adopted by the MP police in applying the Madhya Pradesh Cow Slaughter Prohibition Act, 2004, for similar crimes when the accused were Muslim and Hindu.
While the state has been governed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for nearly two decades—barring a 15-month Congress interregnum—it was a Congress-run municipal council in Damoh that called for the demolition of Muslim homes within hours of the incident.
In addition, the council, chaired by Congress leader Manju Virendra Rai, issued eviction notices to 300 Muslims from the animal trading community (Qureshi) who have been living in the Qasai Mandi locality of the city for over a century.
Selective Injustice
Muslims in general have faced violent State retribution for alleged crimes in MP.
For instance, in July 2023, in Ujjain, a three-storey building belonging to Ashraf Hussain, a shopkeeper, was razed amid celebrations after his two sons, one a minor, were arrested on false allegations of spitting on a religious procession.
Similarly in the last one year, in Ratlam, Seoni, Morena and Mandla districts of the state, the BJP government demolished the properties of Muslims accused of cow transporting or cow slaughter in addition to booking them under the National Security Act (NSA), 1980—which allows the government to keep individuals in preventive detention for up to a year without trial—and cow protection laws.
In Mandla, in south-west MP, 11 houses were razed a day before Eid Ul Adha, in June 2024, over allegations of illegally transporting and slaughtering cows.
Even though chief minister Mohan Yadav reiterated his stand against ‘bulldozer justice’ many times over the past year, the MP government celebrated the demolition of homes as one of its key achievements, according to this official communique.
Article 14 tracked three incidents where nine Muslims were beaten and paraded and four occasions where close to 40 buildings and houses were demolished over allegations of cow slaughter or transportation.
Police Ignore Own & SC Orders
The police and district administration’s action against Muslim suspects in Damoh violated the MP police’s own November 2020 order, while the demolition of their properties violated a November 2024 Supreme Court verdict disallowing arbitrary demolitions.
The Court termed bulldozer demolitions that were not carried out in “accordance with the procedure prescribed by law” as against “the basic principles of natural justice”, the citizen’s right to shelter and “inflicting a collective punishment on the entire family” of the accused.
Describing bulldozer demolitions as “extreme” and “disproportionate”, the Supreme Court issued detailed pan-India guidelines to regulate instances of bulldozer demolition, and insisted that notices must be issued before demolition.
The bench also said that any violation of the guidelines would be treated as contempt of court, and that costs will be deducted from the salary of the officials involved.
The November 2020 circular issued by then-additional director general of police (CID) Kailash Makwana—now MP’s director general of police (DGP)—prohibited public humiliation of suspects in front of the media.
Makwana issued the order in the light of an August 2014 Supreme Court ruling which declared parading accused persons an affront to their dignity and presumption of innocence.
Yet, in Damoh, the Muslim suspects endured not only legal action but also public shaming, physical assault, and property destruction.
When Article 14 sought comment from DGP Makwana, his principal staff officer, Vineet Kapoor, said, “Yes, it's true that DG has issued this letter back in 2020. The DG has taken note of the recent incidents and in the light of the November 2020 circular, and he is going to issue another circular very soon reiterating his past commitment with specific orders not to parade or flogged the accused in public with a warning for stern action against violators.”
On whether the police officers who violated the circular would be held accountable, Kapoor said, on 20 March, 2025, "The PHQ (police headquarters) will issue the show cause notice to officers concerned."
Rise of Cow Vigilante Groups
MP has witnessed the rise of Hindu fundamentalist cow protection groups, such as the Bajrang Dal, Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Gau Raksha Sena, over the last two decades, who violently attack animal transporters, claiming to protect cows.
"It's no secret that the current regime is not very favorable towards minorities and disadvantaged communities and enforces laws and punishments unequally,” said Sanjay R Hegde, senior Supreme Court lawyer. “The nexus of police and right-wing groups further exacerbates the situation.”
In Damoh, the Bajrang Dal and the VHP tipped off the police about the alleged cow slaughter, leading to the arrest of 10 Muslim men and a Dalit woman called Rekha.
On 7 March, both the fundamentalist groups marched through the streets, claiming that a cow found slaughtered was pregnant. They urged locals to observe a Damoh bandh or shutdown.
In response, police staged a dramatic kilometer-long parade through Damoh’s streets, flogging five of the Muslim suspects forced to march along.
Videos of the spectacle show the men—visibly terrified, limping, and wincing in pain—forced to chant slogans, as they stumbled forward.
"Hindutva is a political project. Public flogging, demolishing homes, targeting of the Muslims anywhere in the country in the name of cow slaughter is a part of a larger political project (for the government) to keep the voters polarized,” said Vipul Mudgal, a journalist who heads Common Cause, an organisation that works on the intersections of democracy, governance and political violence. “These aren't random cases, they are part of the infrastructure of violence painstakingly created in the name of cows.”
“There are cow vigilantes who patrol the highways with the tacit permission of the police, which is why police do nothing when there are clear reports of organized money extortion by cow vigilantes at the border check posts,” added Mudgal. “This is illegal and can't go on, but the police wanted to please their political masters."
Police said they filed two first information reports (FIRs), charging the 10 Muslims from a community of butchers and the Dalit woman with cow slaughter under the 2004 Act and under section 109 (attempt to murder) of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita (BNS), 2023.
The attempted murder charges stemmed from allegations that the accused fired at saffron-clad activists attempting to intervene.
The Congress-led 40-member municipal council also ordered the razing of over 20 structures, including homes and shops, at Sita Bowli in Damoh, where a cow carcass was found, labeling them “illegal”.
About two km away, in Qasai Mandi, where the Muslim butchers have lived for generations, the administration issued eviction notices to more than 300 living in and around the locality.
“The administration want to wipe out the entire animal trading community from Damoh city under the garb of this incident although Muslims have already condemned this act,” said Mursalim Qurashi (52), a Damoh-based leader of the Qureshi (butcher) community, who had filed a petition in the high court in June 2024 requesting land to be allocated for an abattoir within the city limits.
“Earlier, they used to blame the entire community for an individual's crime,” he added. “Now, they are punishing the community for individual actions.”
The accused were boycotted by the bar association of Damoh, leaving them without legal representation in court.
In the 2010 A S Mohammed Rafi vs State of Tamil Nadu, the Supreme Court declared boycotts by bar associations as “a disgrace to the legal community” and said, “We declare that all such resolutions of Bar Associations in India are null and void and the right-minded lawyers should ignore and defy such resolutions if they want democracy and rule of law to be upheld in this country.”
“When the lawyers community or bar association decides not to defend a case and those advocates who step out of the line owing to their professional obligations, were ostracized by others,” said Anunay Shrivastava, a senior lawyer practicing in the Damoh district court. “This is one of the most challenging situations for any advocate to secure bail.”
The accused in the Damoh case were also attacked by advocates inside court premises.
“In the recent past, the attack on Muslims inside the court premises has become common,” Shrivastava added, referring to incidents such as this and this, when Muslim men were assaulted when they tried to register an inter-faith marriage.
"When the government and bureaucracy act on their whims disregarding established laws, the courts are the remedy. But, the courts do not always act in a timely or firm manner thus disappointing people who approach it.” said Hegde, the senior Supreme Court lawyer. “The courts need to take bold decisions to protect the rights of the people against the oppressive government and restore faith in democracy and judiciary.”
Cow Protection: The BJP Agenda
The protection of cows and a crackdown on Muslim cow traders has been at the forefront of the BJP’s political agenda in Madhya Pradesh.
The party came to power in the state in 2003, passed the Act prohibiting cow slaughter in 2004, and amended it with increased penalties in 2017.
The BJP even created a Gau cabinet—a group of cabinet ministers to oversee bovine welfare—in 2020.
The 2004 Act prohibits the slaughter and transportation of cows, bulls, bullocks or beef without a permit.
The short-lived Congress government tried to amend the anti-cow slaughter law in July 2019, to curb cases of mob lyching in the state and legalise the transportation of bovines without prior permission.
The new bill did not get the governor's approval.
In March 2020, the Congress government was toppled and chief minister Kamal Nath forced to resign, after 22 Congress MLAs defected to the BJP leaving the government in a minority and returning the BJP to power.
The BJP government, with a new chief minister, Mohan Yadav, appointed in December 2023, declared 2024 ‘Gauvansh Raksha Varsh’ (Bovine Protection Year), reiterating its commitment to cows.
Yadav hiked the budget for cow protection threefold to ₹250 crores in the 2024-25 budget and doubled the daily fodder allowance provided by the government to cowsheds, raising it from Rs 20 to Rs 40 per cow.
In addition, Yadav amended the cow protection law empowering district collectors to confiscate vehicles to prevent the illegal transportation or smuggling of cows.
Enforcing CM’s wishes
Armed with these new laws and directives, the MP police and district administration have gone to extraordinary lengths to enforce the wishes of the new chief minister.
Measures range from invoking the NSA against accused individuals to public flogging, vehicle confiscation, and even property demolitions—leaving no tool unused in their crackdown.
While Damoh served as an example of this approach for those accused of cow slaughter, the same vigour was missing in Chhindwara, a month earlier, where the accused were Hindus.
According to the Chhindwara police FIR, acting on a tip-off, police raided the home of Ballu Pahade, a resident of Samarboh village, 43-km away from Chhindwara district headquarters, on 31 January 2025 and allegedly found 33 kg of beef in his possession along with a knife and other instruments used for cow slaughter.
The police also raided the home of his son Virendra Pahade, located meters away from father’s house, and allegedly recovered 35 kg of beef along with knives used to slaughter cows.
The FIR says police sent the meat samples to the nearest lab and in presence of two eyewitnesses, buried the recovered meat after their arrest.
The police booked the two under sections 4 (Prohibition of slaughter of cow progeny), 5 (Prohibition on possession and transport of beef) and 9 (Penalties for violating section 4) of the 2004 anti-cow slaughter law and under section 325 (mischief by killing, poisoning, maiming or rendering useless any animal) and section 3 (5) (joint criminal liability) of the BNS.
Within a week of their arrest, the father-son duo moved bail applications at Chhindwara District Court which were rejected on 7 February.
A month later, on 7 March, the Jabalpur bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court granted bail to Ballu Pahade. His son’s bail application is pending before the high court.
When they were arrested, the two were sent straight to jail.
Neither the police nor right-wing groups amplified the incident—no public spectacle, no demolition drives, no communal outcry unlike in Damoh a month previously—and the media largely ignored it.
Disparate Treatment
When police in Ghatiya, in MP’s Ujjain district, arrested, on 3 March, 2025, two Muslims—Salim (45) and Aaqib Mewati (22)—accused of plotting to slaughter a cow in Jaithal village 20 km away, they decided to create a public spectacle.
The town inspector of Ujjain’s Ghatiya police station, DL Dasoriya and his fellow policeman paraded them through the streets for over a kilometer while flogging them.
Videos of the incident showed the two men shout and wince in pain and stumble and fall while being forced to limp along.
The two accused were forced to chant “gai hamari mata hai, police hamare baap hai (cow is our mother and police are our fathers)” and apologize to the public, promising not to commit such crimes in the future.
The Bajrang Dal and the VHP, which had tipped off the police about the alleged cow slaughter, ‘honored’ inspector Dasoriya, gave his team sweets thanking them for their “swift and stern action” and then posed for photos.
The Ghatiya police lodged an FIR on 22 February, under section 11 of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960, and three sections of the 2004 MP Cow Slaughter Prohibition Act, claiming the incident took place on 16 or 17 February.
“These atrocities were also the violation of the oath police officers take when they enter service, swearing to serve with impartiality and to uphold fundamental human rights and accord equal respect to all people,” said retired IPS officer from MP, Shailendra Shrivastava.
While the police’s actions in Damoh and Ujjain against cow slaughter suspects led to no official censure, in Dewas, 30-km south of Ujjain, BJP MLA Gayatri Raje Pawar criticised the police when they paraded nine Hindu youth—heads shaved, faces covered and barefoot—for nearly a kilometer, after they allegedly celebrated the Indian cricket team’s March 2025 Champions Trophy win violently, clashing with a police officer and throwing stones at a police vehicle.
Pawar raised the incident in the state assembly and compelled the government to initiate an independent investigation into the incident and the role of the policemen.
The MP police’s selective application of the law against Hindus and Muslims in cases of cow atrocities is not new.
In May 2022, when police booked 14 Bajrang Dal members for lynching two tribal men in south MP’s Seoni district over suspicion of cow slaughter, the government transferred superintendent of police Kumar Prateek to a desk job at the police headquarters in Bhopal.
Almost 70 km east of Seoni, in Balaghat district, when police booked Manoj Pardhi, a Bhartiya Janta Yuva Morcha—the BJP’s youth wing—leader, in 2021, for allegedly smuggling 165 cows and oxen to slaughter houses in Maharashtra, his only punishment was expulsion from the party.
The Year of Cow Protection
In the first six months of 2024, the ‘Gauvansh Raksha Varsh’, MP police filed 575 cases for illegal transportation and cow slaughter, freed 7,524 heads of cattle, arrested over 1,121 suspects and seized 342 vehicles, according to an official communique issued on 28 June 2024.
In the communique, the government said, “Four houses of individuals who desecrated the temple by dumping cow remains in Jaora, Ratlam district, have been razed. Similarly, in Seoni district, bulldozers were deployed to demolish the homes of three accused involved in cow slaughter. Additionally, in the cow slaughter case in Noorabad, Morena, two accused individuals' houses were demolished.”
In all the cases where houses were demolished, the accused were Muslims.
A senior police officer of the MP CID said, “The actions taken in the last six months supersede the data of the last two years, which shows commitment of the new chief minister to protect bovines.”
In 2024, in a bid to provide additional funds for cows in the state, the CM diverted Rs 95.76 crore of financial aid provided by the union government under Article 46 of the constitution meant to be used to build infrastructure for backward scheduled castes and scheduled tribes.
Pratiyush Mishra, a lawyer at Indore High Court, expressed skepticism if the Ujjain or Damoh police would receive punishment similar to that imposed on their counterparts in Gujarat in October 2022 for breaching the police chief's circular and compromising the rights of the accused.
In a case of flogging Muslims in Gujarat, the Supreme Court upheld a 14-day jail term pronounced by the Gujarat High Court after four policemen publicly flogged three Muslims calling the incident “atrocious.”
“Do you have an authority under law to tie people to poles and beat them in public view?” said the Supreme Court in January 2023. “And take a video? What kind of atrocity is this, and you even take video of it?”
(Kashif Kakvi is an investigative journalist who covers Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.)
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