Warning: The following images are disturbing

NOIDA, INDIA—Caretakers at a small animal hospital on the fringe of India’s capital still talk about what happened with sadness and dismay. A few months ago, during a routine traffic stop, local police on the outskirts of New Delhi discovered a truck packed with cattle on route to an illicit slaughterhouse. They brought the truck to the hospital, only to discover that many of the animals had suffocated during the ride.

Hindus widely see the cow as a divine animal. But for many cows like these, their life is anything but divine. Vocativ/Abhinav Srihan

The others suffered severe gashes and broken limbs. The nurses did what they could to help the animals before shipping them off to a private cow shelter—one of hundreds all over the country. But the cows soon died of their injuries, according to the shelter. It was the third incident that month.

“You wouldn’t believe it,” says a doctor at the hospital, who asked that I not print her name. “It was the most disgusting thing.”

Hindus widely see the cow as a divine animal, delivered by the gods to bless humans with milk for food, dung for fuel and urine for medicine. People pay their respects by dressing up these docile creatures for religious ceremonies and rituals. There’s even a longstanding tradition in some families to feed the cow before anyone eats breakfast.

Cows destined for an illegal slaughterhouse. Many didn't survive the journey. Vocativ/Abhinav Srihan

And yet there’s a dark side to a cow’s life, even in India. Many cows freely roam the streets of Delhi—a sprawling city that’s home to more than 9 million people—grazing on strewn trash. Most of them wind up at cow shelters, their guts destroyed by plastic. From there, activists say, only the cash cows are saved. The others are often stolen or sold to gangs that run illicit slaughterhouses. “Nobody,” says Vidhi Shukla, the director of the small animal hospital in Noida, “is interested in cows that don’t give milk.”

The illicit slaughterhouses, activists say, are dark, wretched places that spring up in India’s slums. The cattle that survive the slog to the butcher are typically hit with hammers before workers slit their throats, leaving them to die in a pool of their own blood. Some, activists say, are skinned while they’re still alive.

The short, unhappy life of a cow has even become a hot-button issue in the lead up to India’s recent elections. Vocativ/Abhinav Srihan

India has become one of the world’s largest beef exporters, but the country’s legal slaughterhouses say the meat comes from buffalos, not cows. Animal rights activists, however, estimate there are as many as five illegal slaughterhouses for every legal one.

For decades, all but a few states in India have had laws on the books to protect cows—from banning their beef to prosecuting the people who control the illegal meat trade. Peddling illegal beef and transporting the cows for slaughter is punishable by up to seven years in prison in some areas, but enforcement is still scant. There has been a spike in arrests by police in recent years in Delhi, but the criminal gangs are still bypassing the legal system with bribes or simply by disguising their trucks, according to Maneka Gandhi, a prominent animal activist and member of Parliament.

"These [drivers] are dangerous people. If they’re confident, they will beat the hell out of you.” —Activist Abhinav Srihan

The short, unhappy life of a cow has even become a hot-button issue in the lead up to India’s recent elections, as activists are taking matters into their own hands. Norendra Modi, a Hindu nationalist candidate for prime minister, has used the existence of illegal slaughterhouses to rally his base. He hasn’t proposed any specific changes to the law or explained how he’d bolster enforcement. But he says his opposition, the Congress Party, supports illicit meat grinders by promoting a strong and insufficiently regulated beef export industry.

A caretaker at a cow shelter near Delhi. Vocativ/Kamala Kelkar

Abhinav Srihan, an animal rights activist, agrees with Modi’s criticism, but he doesn’t think new laws will be effective. He founded a volunteer organization called the Fauna Police that tries to stop cow smugglers by intercepting trucks on their way to slaughterhouses, among other things. He and his fellow activists often find the cattle crammed into trucks and buses, their legs tied to their necks. Srihan says he has seen some drivers throw chili into the cows’ eyes to get them to move out of the truck after a long haul.

Sometimes, he and his fellow activists beat the truck drivers “to teach them a lesson,” he says, before the police come to arrest them. More extreme activists allegedly set fire to the trucks after the cows are rescued. “These [drivers] are dangerous people,” Srihan says. “If they’re confident, they will beat the hell out of you.”

Cows at a railroad station in Mumbai. Reuters

At a cow shelter I visited with Srihan on a muggy day last week, where truckloads of sick animals had recently arrived, there were about 750 cattle. Most were female and used for milk, but there were some 200 males as well, which the caretakers kept around for mating and pulling carts of manure.

All of the cows were healthy. As for the unhealthy ones at other shelters, Srihan says that’s where India often gets its supply of beef.