Indian supreme court has rejected a petition seeking a nation-wide ban on cow slaughter terming it an issue best left for individual states to decide. “We will not interfere in state laws” because it’s a state’s prerogative where “one state may ban slaughter and another may not”, said the top court while rejecting the petition.

Currently 21 out of 29 states have put up a ban on cow slaughter. The 8 states where cow slaughter is allowed are Arunachal, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Tripura, Sikkim, Kerala, West Bengal.

Cow is revered as a “mother of civilization” in Hindu scriptures and majority of the followers of the religion consider cow slaughter as a blasphemy.

There have been various incidents of mob attacks where many have been killed by Hindu extremists for allegedly slaughtering or attempting to slaughter a cow.