Police in India are investigating whether a deadly protest over the alleged slaughter of a cow, an animal many Hindus consider sacred, was aimed at sparking religious tension during a Muslim gathering. Monday’s violence in the country’s most populous state of Uttar Pradesh, which killed two people, brings back to the national spotlight a trend of cow vigilantism by hardline Hindu groups ahead of a general election due in less than six months. Police have arrested four of 27 men named in a complaint after a police officer and a man were killed in the northern state’s district of Bulandshahr as tens of thousands of Muslims gathered for a religious event. Police would try to determine the age of the cow carcass, police official Anand Kumar said when asked if there had been a conspiracy to vitiate the atmosphere by using a dead cow brought in from elsewhere. “If there was anything like that, then the details will come out,” Kumar, the state’s second-highest police official, told a news ...
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