Amid the ongoing row over the Central government's notification banning the sale of cattle for slaughter, two traders were on Monday thrashed by cow vigilantes in Maharashtra.
The incident took place in Malegaon town in Washim district of Maharashtra.
In a video, traders can be seen claiming that the meat was of a buffalo and not of a cow.
However, the group of vigilantes can be seen thrashing one of the members and forcing him to say, 'Jai Shree Ram'.
The traders were also taken to a police station along with their equipment.
Mokshanda Patil, SP, Washim district told DNA, "Nine people have been arrested in connection with this incident. Seven of them who attacked the two men were booked under various sections of the IPC. The two youths, too, have been booked under section 295a of the Indian Penal Code." Samples of the flesh have reportedly been dispatched to a Nagpur laboratory for tests.
Earlier, on Sunday, some Youth Congress activists in Kerala allegedly publicly butchered a calf to protest the Centre's ban on sale of cattle for slaughtering.
The Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan who has also shot off a letter to the Prime Minister to protest the Centre's decision, has taken a jibe at BJP-RSS saying there was no need for the people of the state to draw lessons from New Delhi or Nagpur on their food habits.
Earlier, the Supreme Court had also issued a notice to the Centre and six states asking them to explain the increased instances of vigilantism in the name of cow protection.
Last month, a Haryana's dairy farmer Pehlu Khan succumbed to injuries after he was attacked by a cow protection group. A mob had also lynched two men in Assam's Nagaon district suspecting them to be cattle thieves.
In a new regulation for animal trade in the country, the government has allowed cattle trade only among farm land owners.
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