Bengal: Muslims Become Cow Protectors, Hindu Traders Demand Cattle Slaughter

CPI(M) MLA Mustafizur Rahman Rana has also written to the Chief Minister, urging a peaceful resolution before Eid.

According to Calcutta High Court sources, at least five PILs have already been filed challenging the implementation drive, including one by CPI (ML) Liberation.

State committee leader Moloy Tiwari said the petition seeks an interim order preventing “a dormant and outdated 1950 law from being weaponised in the name of cow protection against livelihoods across communities.”

Lawyer Samim Ahmed, appearing for cattle traders and dairy farmers in one PIL, argued:

“The State has abruptly operationalised a historically dormant law without adequate veterinary infrastructure, certification mechanisms, or slaughter facilities. This threatens the livelihoods of cattle traders, dairy farmers, transporters, meat workers and leather workers.”

If this rule remains in force, farmers would stop rearing cattle for milk, as maintaining non-productive animals until death would become financially ruinous.

The ripple effects would extend far beyond the beef economy. Feed suppliers, veterinary medicine, the leather industry, slaughterhouses, restaurants, transport workers, and rural labourers — all would be affected.

The impact, therefore, is no longer just religious or political. It is economic, social and civilisational.

And perhaps the greatest irony of all is this:

For the first time in Bengal, large sections of Muslim society are publicly opposing cow sacrifice, while a section of Hindutva’s traditional Hindu support base is desperately hoping that cows will be sacrificed — somehow, by any means necessary.