Story By: Michael Leidig, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Asia Wire Report

AsiaWire

This video which is being widely shared on social media shows one of a growing number of stray bulls attacking and reportedly seriously injuring a man on the street.

The incident happened in Uttar Pradesh in India where the government policy of protecting cattle which are regarded as holy in the Hindu faith has led to a large increase in the number of strays.

The bull suddenly decides to attack a man in a red shirt, pushing him to the ground and repeatedly goring him despite the attempts of people nearby to drive it off with sticks.

Critics say the problem of abandoned cattle is a growing one. Most have either escaped or been abandoned by farmers who can no longer afford to keep unproductive animals and with no possibility now to slaughter them, they are increasingly they are being left to run free.

There are reports that farmers who want to abandon cows are either taking into local forests and leaving them or driving them onto city roads under cover of darkness
and abandoning there.

Critics say this is crueller than offering a humane end to their lives.

Instead of cows many farmers are switching to the use of buffaloes which are not covered by the same protection as the indigenous breeds of cows, which are venerated and worshipped.

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