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| Aryan Mishra was shot dead by cow vigilantes who suspected him of being a cattle smuggler. |
Indian police said on Thursday they were compiling a list of right-wing Hindu "cow vigilantes" after a young man falsely accused of beef smuggling was shot dead.
The murder of 19-year-old Aryan Mishra in the northern state of Haryana last month sparked extraordinary outrage, especially because the young man was a Hindu.
Cows are revered as sacred by India's Hindu majority, and cow slaughter is illegal in many Indian states. Authorities are often accused of failing to rein in Hindu hardliners who form gangs of "cow vigilantes" that attack people they suspect of engaging in cow slaughter, with several deaths reported each year.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has in the past condemned attacks on cattle traders and beef eaters, but critics say extremists are emboldened by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Hindu nationalist rhetoric.
Many of those accused of cow transport and killing are from India's Muslim community, a country of 220 million people. Social media is flooded with videos boasting about vigilante attacks.
Mishra was killed on August 24 on a highway after armed men chased his car for 50 kilometres (31 miles) believing it was transporting beef.
Five people have been arrested in connection with the murder, and Haryana police chief Aman Yadav said police were "compiling a list of vigilante cows."
Earlier this week, a 72-year-old Muslim man was beaten on a train for allegedly transporting beef. Last month, a Muslim garbage collector in Haryana was lynched by a mob for allegedly eating beef.
The Times of India said it "depicts" its shock at Mishra's killing and "focuses on the fact that, as a Hindu, he was unfairly targeted."
"This is equally telling that vigilantism does not provoke social outrage, much less consistent and swift police intervention," she added. "But the police and authorities should be very scared."
