According to a Human Rights Watch report, at least 44 people, 36 of them Muslims, were lynched across 12 Indian states between May 2015 and December 2018.
Published Jun 13, 2025 | 9:00 AM ⚊ Updated Jun 23, 2025 | 9:09 AM
Fear has become a constant for students from Kerala and the Northeast living in the Vijay Nagar area. (AI Image)
Synopsis: Students from Kerala and Northeastern states living in Northwest Delhi’s Vijay Nagar are a scared lot after self-appointed cow vigilantes’ tried to intimidate them, alleging they consume beef.
S Devananda could not believe her eyes when she saw a mob of over 50 people beating up a shopkeeper. She later came to know that the man was assaulted, alleging that he was selling beef.
It was then that Devananda, hailing from Kozhikode in Kerala and studying at Delhi University, remembered a pet ambulance that patrolled the street where she was living.
”I believe a cow ambulance is meant to rescue cows. But we didn’t know why that ambulance was patrolling our street at that time. I couldn’t forget the night. There were more than 50 people, and they beat up that shopkeeper,” she told South First.
The incident was new to Devananda, who had never witnessed such an incident back in her home state, where beef and carabeef are not strange to the dining table. “In Kerala, we celebrated beef festivals, but here we couldn’t even utter the word beef,” she is still scared.
Devananda is not alone. Fear has become a constant for students from Kerala and the Northeast living in the Vijay Nagar area. They fear that a mob could any time barge into their kitchen, demanding to check what they are cooking, eating, or even saying.
The mob, the fear are real. The mob is not fictitious like the Thinkpol — or the Thought Police — in the dystopian world George Orwell has portrayed in Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984).
This is real, and this is Delhi in 21st-century India. This was not the National Capital Region that Devananda and others had expected.
According to a Human Rights Watch report, at least 44 people, 36 of them Muslims, were lynched across 12 Indian states between May 2015 and December 2018. During the same period, over 280 people were injured in more than 100 such incidents across 20 states.
Gau rakshaks chanted ‘Jai Shri Ram’ after beating Chaman Kumar.
These attacks were led by self-proclaimed cow protection groups (Gau rakshak sena), many with affiliations to militant Hindu outfits that often maintain ties with the ruling BJP.
After Rekha Gupta took oath as the ninth Chief Minister of Delhi at Ramlila Maidan on 20 February 2025, a new atmosphere is taking shape in the national capital. A shift marked by fear and suspicion.
”This is not the Delhi we imagined. We came here to learn. But every night, we wonder, are we next?” Devananda wondered.
The ‘Northeast Store remains shut. No one on the street knows where Chaman Kumar, the 44-year-old shop owner from Manipur, is now, or what happened to his wife and two children.
Simran.
The family had run this small shop for years, serving a neighbourhood densely populated by Delhi University students. But since 28 May, the shop has remained closed, and the family has disappeared.
Behind the locked shutters, the hateful slogans of that night still echo in the mind of Simran, a Delhi University researcher and SFI Delhi State Committee member from Bihar.
“Desh ke gaddaron ko goli maro saalon ko” (Shoot the traitors of the nation), the mob had shouted as they descended on the street.
Simran stood up and faced the self-anointed cow vigilantes, her head held high and her voice firm. As the news spread, the entire student fraternity swooped down and rallied behind her.
“They (Chaman and family) have been here for years, and students living in hostels, PGs, and flats have always known them. But around 8 pm on 28 May, a mob took over the street. Gau Rakshaks began beating Chaman Kumar. No one from the neighbourhood intervened; they all remained silent. I couldn’t just watch a mob lynch a poor shopkeeper,” the bespectacled young woman said.
The mob alleged that the shop was selling cow meat. They also turned on the students.
”After checking the bag of a student from Kerala, they called for raids on the flats of students from both the Northeast and Kerala, accusing them of eating beef,” Simran said. The student whose bag the mob checked was Devananda.
In response, SFI North Delhi organised a protest outside the Model Town Police Station and submitted a complaint, alleging that the mob harassed the students who tried to intervene.
It is fear. Devananda, a student at Miranda College, resides in a rented flat in Vijay Nagar with her friend Taniya K Sen, who hails from Palakkad and studies at St. Stephen’s College.
S Devananda and Taniya K Sen.
”We were witnessing the scene when Simran stepped in and tried to save the shopkeeper’s life. Even after the police had arrived, the mob kept beating him and chanting Jai Shri Ram, Devananda said.
Her words echoed the sentiments of a Kerala-based songwriter and rapper, Hirandas Murali aka Vedan, who said in a recent television interview that the chant, Jai Shri Ram, is now being raised to either attack or kill people.
”I was carrying a black plastic garbage bag when one of the men from the mob noticed it and stopped me, demanding to know if we were carrying beef. Some of them shouted that flats rented by students from Kerala and the Northeast should be raided—because they assumed we eat beef, unlike students from the Hindi-speaking belt,” she added.
”To get any non-vegetarian food, we have to travel to Kerala House, which is an hour from here. We can’t even say the word beef in our neighbourhood. Many say things started worsening after the BJP government came to power in Delhi, with Sangh Parivar groups increasingly targeting Northeast-people-owned shops. We don’t know when a mob might enter our kitchens. In my two years in Delhi, this was the scariest experience I’ve had,” Devananda said.
Taniya joined the conversation: ”Gurmandi, a place near Vijay Nagar, has many cows, and the so-called ‘cow ambulance’ that came during the mob attack was from there. We used to think it was meant to rescue injured cows, but now we don’t know why it was patrolling our area. In many colleges here, including Ambedkar College, non-vegetarian food isn’t even available.”
SFI Delhi State President Sooraj Elamon called the mob violence a scripted and xenophobic attack.
”They accused Chaman of selling cow meat without proof. A schoolboy pretending to be a Malayali was sent to trap him. Selling buffalo meat (carabeef) isn’t illegal. This reflects how the BJP government is enabling such groups,” he told South First.
SFI activist Mehina Fathima said Malayali and Northeast students fear similar threats. ”Even after police arrived, the mob harassed us, followed us home, and targeted female students,” she said.
SFI’s Delhi University Convener Sohan Yadav said the violence stemmed from ”Brahmanical hatred and exclusion,” adding, ”We stood by the victims and won’t let this pass.”
Police said the situation was under control. A meat sample has been sent for forensic testing, and action will follow based on the report.
The Bharatiya Gau Raksha Dal said it had no knowledge about the growing fear among students.
“The central fact of Hinduism is cow protection. We aim to care for stray, abandoned cows, bulls, retired oxen, and orphaned calves. We provide them with food, water, medical care, and a clean space to recover and live peacefully,” an office-bearer of the organisation said.
The cow ambulance service, first introduced by Tamil Nadu in 2016, was a pioneering step in livestock welfare. Officially named the Animal Mobile Medical Ambulance (AMMA) or the ‘1962’ service, it was launched under the leadership of former chief minister J Jayalalithaa to provide emergency veterinary care at the doorstep of farmers.
In a region known for its reverence for livestock, especially during festivals like Mattu Pongal, this service was welcomed as a progressive step. However, in the current climate of rising cow vigilantism, the siren of these ambulances in Delhi is evoking fear and anxiety.
(Edited by Majnu Babu).
