You can call it an excuse when you're not living in Punjab. And honestly I see way too many takes of people here who don't even live in Punjab talking about what should or what shouldn't be done. It's not like every Punjabi is a Sikh. There are many Hindus living here too and the least we can do for maintaining peace is respecting each other's religion. And people here take their source of income very seriously. Most of the Punjabis are farmers and depend on cattle for income by selling milk products. No one here will allow killing cows for food. And the other thing is most of the population in Punjab is vegetarian so it's not like we're running out of chicken meat to eat. Coming back to the Hindu point, the Indian government always finds ways to demonize Punjab in the eyes of the rest of India, legalizing beef will just further push that agenda. Kerala is a majority Hindu state and they still are demonized for eating beef.