An ambulance service for cattle has been launched in northern India’s Uttar Pradesh state in a bid to protect animals sacred to the country’s majority Hindu community.

State deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya announced the Cattle Healing Mobile Van Service on Monday and publicised a toll free number to help the authorities rescue cows in distress.

Maurya said each ambulance, which included a veterinarian and an animal paramedic, would transport abandoned, ill or injured cattle to special shelters or take them to animals hospitals for treatment in the state capital Lucknow and four other nearby cities.

The service, which would soon be expanded statewide, will also initiate legal action against those who abandon their cows once they stop giving milk.