Vigilante cow-protection groups in India have reportedly killed at least 44 people in the past four years.

Key points: Mob attacks are recent — picked up after the Hindu nationalist party came to power in 2014

Mob attacks are recent — picked up after the Hindu nationalist party came to power in 2014 The report finds Muslims, lower castes, and indigenous communities are often targeted

The report finds Muslims, lower castes, and indigenous communities are often targeted The lynchings also disrupt rural economies and communities, including Hindus

A 104-page report released by Human Rights Watch (HRW) also stated at least 280 people were injured in more than 100 attacks across 20 Indian states between May 2015 and December 2018.

The crimes largely target minorities, and go unpunished due to the support of law enforcement and, HRW said, "communal rhetoric by members of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to spur a violent vigilante campaign against consumption of beef and those engaged in the cattle trade".

HRW said 36 Muslims were killed in the reported time period, and police "often stalled prosecutions of the attackers, while several BJP politicians publicly justified the attacks".

'A free pass'

Victims are also from India's Dalit (formerly known as "untouchables") and Adivasi (indigenous) communities.

Human rights activist Harsh Mander told The Guardian many of the killings were filmed, with the footage shared.

"This 'performative' aspect of the violence recalls, for me, the lynchings of African-Americans in the US as a way of showing the status to which a community has been reduced."

Relatives mourn a Muslim man, Mohammad Akhlaq, who in 2015 was beaten and stoned to death over rumours that he butchered a cow. ( Reuters: Stringer )

Many Hindus consider cows to be sacred and most states ban slaughtering cows, but the need to "save" cows and the proliferation of cow-protection groups around the country are recent phenomena.

The Guardian reported that many Hindus in Kerala and Tamil Nadu eat beef, as well as members of less-powerful castes in need of a cheap source of protein.

HRW found a 500 per cent increase in communally divisive rhetoric in speeches by politicians, 90 per cent of which were from BJP members.

About 90 per cent of the attacks were reported after the BJP's ascension to power in May 2014, and 66 per cent took place in BJP-run states.

India Prime Minister Narendra Modi repeatedly called for the protection of cows before his 2014 victory. ( Reuters )

"Calls for cow protection may have started out as a way to attract Hindu votes, but it has transformed into a free pass for mobs to violently attack and kill minority group members," said HRW's South Asia director, Meenakshi Ganguly.

"Indian authorities should stop egging on or justifying these attacks, blaming victims or protecting the culprits."

HRW said many cow-protection groups have clear ties to the BJP.

'These vigilantes get political shelter'

The report itself focused on 11 cases in four states that resulted in 14 deaths, and the Government response in each.

In almost all the cases, HRW found, police stalled the investigations, didn't follow procedure, or were complicit in the ensuing cover-ups.

"Police face political pressure to sympathise with cow protectors and do a weak investigation and let them go free," one retired senior police officer in Rajasthan told HRW.

"These vigilantes get political shelter and help."

A police officer walks by the spot where an officer was killed by a mob in December 2018. ( Reuters: Adnan Abidi )

Witnesses were also intimidated by the accused or authorities themselves, or else afraid to pursue justice due to laws against cow slaughter.

"Indian police investigations into mob attacks are almost as likely to accuse the minority victims of a crime as they are to pursue vigilantes with government connections," Ms Ganguly explained.

The report also said the vigilante violence has disrupted the country's rural economy and communities whose members' livelihoods are tied to livestock, like farmers, herders, cattle transporters, meat traders, and leather workers. This includes many Hindus.

HRW found that farmers who once sold unproductive livestock to slaughterhouses now just free the cows, who go on to ruin crops.

India Prime Minister Narendra Modi, of the BJP, repeatedly called for the protection of cows before his 2014 victory.

Members of a Hindu nationalist vigilante group pose with with cows they claimed to have saved from slaughter. ( Reuters: Cathal McNaughton )

HRW said he didn't strongly condemn the killings until August 2018.

"I want to make it clear that mob lynching is a crime, no matter the motive," Mr Modi said.

BJP politician and spokesman G.V.L. Narasimha Rao told Bloomberg, "No less than the Prime Minister called such elements criminals and urged state governments to act against anyone perpetrating violence under the false pretext of cow vigilantism."

Earlier this month, India's Government announced a national commission for cow protection.