“That day, the way they beat my husband to death completely changed my children’s lives. Thinking they might kill us too, the children are always scared. At night, my seven-year-old, my youngest son, can’t even go out to pee,” said Manasi Chamar, 30, a resident of Kansar village under the Riamal police station in Odisha’s Deogarh district.Manasi’s husband, Kishore, was beaten to death in an alleged mob lynching on September 3, 2025, on suspicion of chopping cow meat for sale. The tragedy left the family stunned and still reeling from shock.“The education of my three school-going daughters and son has been affected. My two younger daughters and my son continue to attend tuition, but my eleven-year-old daughter, the eldest, can’t even step out of the house. Life has become very hard. We struggle every moment for survival,” Manasi added.Four months after Kishore was killed, Odisha made headlines again for a similar lynching by so-called cow vigilantes, this time targeting a Muslim man in Balasore district named Makandar Mahammad in January, which attracted wide public attention.Soon after Kishore was murdered, Riamal police arrested six suspects and produced them before a court. However, the state government and Deogarh district administration have failed to provide security or aid to the family of the victim. In fact, no financial assistance was given for Kishore’s last rites under the Harishchandra scheme, which is intended to support poor families with funeral expenses.Due to the prevailing atmosphere of fear, Manasi fled Kansar village with her three children and is now staying at her mother’s home in Kumelsingha, Bargarh district. There, she works as a farm labourer to support her family. Committed to her children’s education despite the hardships, she arranges for their tuition and plans to admit them to a government residential school in the coming academic year.Manasi Chamar and her three daughters. Photo: By arrangement.Kishore belonged to the Chamar community, a Dalit caste whose traditional occupation involves skinning dead cows and selling the hide – a practice passed down by his father and ancestors. Villagers still called on his family to dispose of dead cows. Though Kishore had largely shifted to labour work, he occasionally sold hides. The family owned three cows, one of which – an elderly animal – had been given to Gautam Naik in the nearby Kundeijuri village for safekeeping.On September 3, Kishore learned from Gautam that the cow had died. As he transported it back to his village and began skinning it, a mob arrived, suspecting him and his companions of preparing cow meat for consumption. The attackers beat them and dragged them to the centre of Kundeijuri village. Gautam escaped, but no villagers intervened to save any of the others, fearing the brutality of the mob. By the time Manasi arrived on a tip from Gautam’s wife, Kishore was already dead. She alerted Riamal police, who arrested the suspects within hours.The accused – Prabhat Sahu (36), Ghanashyam Pradhan (30), Gajanana Kalet (18), Kumar Mani Kalet (60) and Suresh Kisan (55) from Kundeijuri, and Deepak Behera (37) from Bhandarimal or Mahendrapur – are in jail, facing murder charges under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).Despite being entitled to Rs 10,000 from the Indian Red Cross Society, a widow’s pension, Rs 20,000 under the family welfare scheme of the Odisha government and child protection support, Manasi says that no aid has been provided.Surprisingly, apart from the social organisation Bhim Army – which has a base among the Dalits – no political party, not even from the opposition, has spoken out about the incident. Journalist Jajnya Jyotish says that in the villages of Deogarh it is common practice for Dalits to skin dead cows and eat beef, and this has never been considered a crime.Even today, if a cow dies in any village, it is the Chamar community that is called upon to dispose of the carcass. “The emergence of a mindset that can lead to mob lynching over cows is a frightening outcome of the hate culture created by the current government,” Jyotish says.Social worker Debashish Siddharth adds that untouchability is still practised in parts of Deogarh, which was once among the Gadajat princely states. The practice is widely experienced in the personal and professional lives of the oppressed castes. He claimed that in recent years, an influx of people and organisations affiliated with a particular brand of politics has arrived in the Riamal block, generating an atmosphere of aggression and hatred against the sale of beef and cattle transportation, while also targeting a particular religion. According to him, this campaign culminated in Kishore’s lynching.Deogarh District Ambedkar Social Forum’s Kshamanidhi Patra highlighted the rise of cow-related vigilantism over the past decade and noted that this was the first mob lynching in the area Kishore belonged to. The forum had alerted Deogarh Biju Janata Dal MLA Romanch Ranjan Biswal about the incident, but Patra said he neither met the family nor assured them of security.Since the Bharatiya Janata Party government came to power in Odisha in 2024, there have been numerous incidents of violence and beatings related to beef/cow smuggling. Deogarh District Collector Kabindra Sahu said he was unaware of any aid being provided to the family of Kishore, but would consider assistance if Manasi submitted a petition.