The murder of Prashanth Poojary refers to the killing of Prashanth Poojary in Moodabidri a town in Dakshina Kannada district of the Indian state of Karnataka. Poojary, a 29 year old flower seller and member of Bajrang Dal, was stabbed with blade by six assailants on 9 October 2015 at about 7.00 am IST. As of 29 October 2015, ten people have been arrested in connection with the attack, allegedly motivated by Poojary's activism against the slaughter of cows, which is illegal locally and breaches the traditional taboo against cattle slaughter in India. One suspect Mohammad Imtiaz Gantalkatte was arrested from Mumbai airport as he was attempting to flee India for Dubai.
An eyewitness to the incident 60 year old Vaman Poojary, a tender coconut seller whose shop was opposite Poojary's shop, went missing on 15 October 2015. He was found dead on the next day. It has been alleged by Nalin Kumar Kateel MP from Dakshina Kannada constituency to which the town of Moodabidri belongs that witnesses were being threatened over international phone calls including those made from Pakistan and asked not to testify against the suspects. The Karnataka government also revealed that its minister Abhay Chandra Jain received threats Karnataka police consider this murder as a part of a conspiracy to incite communal hatred in the region.
Because the incident has not received the same attention as the recent killings of Muslims for being 'beef eaters' (such as the 2015 mob lynching of Mohammad Akhlaq in Dadri), some Hindu activists have used this incident to allege a double standard amongst "progressive" Indians. This was exemplified in a Zee News talk show titled "Cow slaughter: Protests against Dadri lynching, why silence over Prashanth Poojary's murder?" Vishwesha Teertha, a religious leader and adviser to the Hindu nationalist Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) who is prominent in the Go Seva (Sanskrit: Cow protection) movement, has similarly asserted bias on the part of the Indian National Congress state government in the matter.