At a time when beef ban in Maharashtra triggered a row, a group of Muslim traders in Uttar Pradesh has announced to start a door-to-door campaign across the state in the upcoming month of Ramzan against consumption of beef.

“We will go to every household in Muslim localities and try to convince them not to consume beef-meat of cow and bull,” said Shameel Shamsi, President of Muslim Vyapari Sangh, that has initiated the campaign. Shamsi said that consuming beef is wrong even from religious point of view.

“Hazrat Ali, the caliph of Islam and Prophet Muhammad’s son-in-law, had said that the meat of cow is poison and its milk is elixir. So even Islam is against its consumption,” he said.

He said that volunteers would visit Muslim dominated areas in cities and villages of the state to educate people to consume cow milk, and not the meat. The campaign would be led by 432 office bearers of the traders’ body comprising over 22,000 members.

“It will begin in the Muslim majority areas of Barabanki and Faizabad,” Shamsi said.

The campaign has won support from clerics, both from Sunni and Shia sects of Muslims.

“We have always had the same stand on beef consumption. We can avoid consuming beef when we have alternatives. Besides we should avoid it for it hurts the sentiments of Hindus,” said Maulana Khalid Rasheed Farangi Mahali, Imam, Eidgah Aishbagh, Lucknow.

Maulana Khalid, a Sunni cleric, said, not only during Ramzan, he had issued appeals against beef consumption earlier also. Shia cleric Maulana Kalbe Jawad has also extended support to the campaign.

The traders’ body also plans to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and request him to impose a nation-wide ban on beef and export of meat. It had met previous Prime Minister Manmohan Singh with the same demand in 2008.