NEW DELHI/MUMBAI, India (Reuters) — Rising tensions over eating beef in Hindu-majority India are starting to hit the multi-billion-dollar buffalo meat trade, with exports falling in the last six months as traders run short of supplies and China lifts purchases from Brazil.
Religious activists, who critics say have been emboldened by nationalist prime minister Narendra Modi’s ascendance, have stepped up attacks on the beef industry, alleging that cows are being killed and falsely labelled for export as buffalo meat.
Cows are revered in Hindu culture and their killing is banned in some states.
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Beef exports are banned, but in recent weeks suppliers of buffalo meat have been roughed up by Hindu mobs on suspicion of carrying cow carcasses in their trucks, exporters said.
As a result, the exporters said only a fraction of the meat processing centres authorized to export are operating in the major selling state Uttar Pradesh, where a mob of Hindus lynched a Muslim man last month over rumours he ate beef.
“If we get orders there is no supply; if suppliers try to sell, they are harassed,” said Mohammed Tauseef, director of Al-Hamd Agro Food Products in Uttar Pradesh.
Days after Modi condemned the murder in Uttar Pradesh, following criticism over rising religious intolerance in India, villagers in Himachal Pradesh state killed another Muslim man for allegedly smuggling cows.
The government, meanwhile, said steps against illegal exports had helped cut shipments.
