According to a report in Sunday Times of India of April 27 (Lucknow edition),
Mufti Habibur Rehman, head of the fatwa department of Darul Uloom, Deoband,
Uttar Pradesh, has issued a fatwa asking Muslims to abstain from cow slaughter,
eating beef and trading in cow hides if the country's laws forbade it.

Shari'ah, he pointed out, did not allow anything against the law; eating beef
was, therefore, not permissible even if Islam allowed it.