The Goa Bench of the Bombay High Court on Thursday allowed conditional slaughtering of bulls aged above 12 for Bakrid and asked the State government to keep Goa Meat Complex, the State-owned abattoir, ready for the slaughter ahead of Id.

The issue is once again poised to flare up emotions as, agitated over the court order, the Govansh Raksha Abhiyan (GRA), and the Rashtriya Goraksha Seva (RGS), which are spearheading a movement demanding a ban on slaughter of cow progeny, on Thursday threatened to challenge the court order in the Supreme Court.

These associations accused the Goa government of playing “vote-bank politics” by supporting and encouraging the Association of All Goa Muslim Jamat (AAGMA) in their petition in the High Court over animal slaughter. The AAGMA had approached the court praying to relax the restrictions on animal slaughter on Bakrid day since it is a “festival of sacrifice” for the Muslim community.

Kamalesh Bandekar of GRA and Ashoo Mongia of RGS, along with Mohammad Faiz Khan of National Muslim Cow Protection Cell (NMCPC), New Delhi, and others addressed a press conference here on Thursday and blamed the Goa government for intervening in the petition in the High Court to say that the government would give the facilities for the festival instead of opposing the slaughter.

Mr. Bandekar, in fact, went ahead and warned the Parrikar government that it will have to pay a heavy price for letting down the movement by mishandling the issue.

He wanted the issue not to take a communal turn, but legally resolved. Mr. Mongia criticised the Union government for allotting Rs.500 crore for the protection and conservation of cow progeny on one hand and allowing the State government in Goa to play vote-bank politics on the other. “No BJP government in other States allow such a thing,” he said. While Mr. Faiz Khan, who on Wednesday filed an intervention application in the High Court praying that cows and bulls should not be slaughtered during Bakrid.

He supported the intervention petition filed by the GRA and emphatically stated that Islam does not favour slaughter of cow, what it actually wants is sacrificing of evils from inside.