India and nations with large Hindu populations have seen a number of their temples attacked, vandalized and destroyed for centuries, but a growing trend of decapitated cow heads and beef (all living animals are considered sacred in Hinduism and meat is widely not allowed on temple premises) are being found left at temples by miscreants wanting to disturb and scare Hindu communities.

The last 5 years have seen at least a few dozen attacks on Hindu temples that involved cow heads being thrown at temple gates. Lakshmi, An activist of a group that tries to shelters wild cows in India called Gau Seva (translated as Serving Cows), told us that she has heard of more than 100 cases in India over the last years where hinduphobic or disturbed individuals have inserted cow meat or cow body parts on a Mandir’s (temple) premise.

In Hinduism, the cow represents all other creatures and majority of Hindus believe that all living creatures are sacred including mammals, fishes, birds – hence many Hindus are vegetarians . However, many see the cow as more sacred and a symbol of Mother Earth and called Mata Gau. The reason for this is that cows always gives and feeds, representing life and the support of life since in ancient India, Hindus could survive with food from the cow’s milk and fertilizer for their farms.

One of the most famous cases in recent history of where a Cow head was used to intimidate Hindu occurred in Malaysia, a nation where over 60% of the population is Malay Muslims and the minority Hindu population is mainly of South Indian & Tamil origins. In 2009, after the announcement of construction of a relocated Hindu temple, many local Muslim-residents were up in arms because it was reported that it would make their property values go down since ‘Hindus are kafirs (infidels)’ and more Hindus would want to move to the neighborhood. These protests be local residents was horribly hinduphobic in nature with a Cow-Head being dragged, stepped-on and thrown towards the land allocated for the new Hindu temple.

In all the negativity and increasing trend of hinduphobia and anti-hindu bigotry (especially online), I found a gold-nugget of humor mixed with satire, where a young human rights activist had tweeted “Too Bad Hindus Don’t Consider Cupcakes as Sacred, Or They’d Get Lots of Desserts Delivered to Their Temples” regarding the latest attack on a Hindu temple in Kerala, India where cow meat was thrown on the temple.

Some more images of cases where cow-heads or other parts of cows were thrown at Hindu temples as an act of pure-hate & bigotry. (Warning: Some individuals may find the images below as disturbing)