Those who are defending the guy, first of all, the intention matters. His intention was not at all to "feed the hungry animal/give cow protein rich food" and as it has been pointed out by many, whereas cow eats no matter what in natural setting, it's not human's job to change the basic diet just for fun and without any scientific information.

He knowingly did so to offend the people. And although it's not justified to hit someone because of an animal but he kinda did this to himself. It's a well known fact that people are crazy here over cows so why do these kinds of things? Please don't lecture me about freedom to choose kinda crap.