MUMBAI – Suspected vigilantes on Saturday killed a Muslim man transportingtwo cows in India, just 15 months after a similar attack spotlighted thegrowing influence of pro-Hindu fringe groups.

Many Hindus regard the cow as sacred, but India’s Muslim minority engagesin the trade of cattle for slaughter and consumption, chiefly of buffalomeat, as well as dairy purposes.

Police in the northwestern state of Rajasthan said a group of five to sevenpeople surrounded the man, identified only as Akbar, as he led the cows tohis village in the nearby state of Haryana and thrashed him to death onsuspicion of cow smuggling.”We are investigating the incident and will makearrests soon,” Shyam Singh, a police official in the district of Alwar,told Reuters.

The incident took place soon after midnight, triggered by the suspicions ofa few nearby villagers that the 28-year-old man was smuggling the cows,Singh said. Akbar belonged to the farming community in adjacent Haryana.

Cow vigilantism by pro-Hindu groups has surged in India since PrimeMinister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party came topower in 2014, although most of the country’s 29 states have banned thekilling of cows for meat.Police said they took the badly beaten victim to a nearby hospital, but hewas declared dead.

“En route, the victim identified himself as Akbar and said he wasaccompanied by another friend, who managed to escape,” another districtpolice official, Anil Kumar Beniwal, told Reuters by telephone.

Beniwal said police had identified four or five suspects and expected tomake arrests by evening.

In a post on Twitter, Rajasthan’s chief minister condemned the incident andpromised stern action.