the animals

Bajrang Dal

slaughter

Samajwadi Party

ByAs a year-old petition seeking permission to set up temporary slaughterhouses in Muslim areas for Bakri Eid remains pending before the Bombay High Court, tension is rising in Muslim areas as the annual festival of animal sacrifice approaches. Police have been halting vehicles carrying cattle and impounding, strictly implementing rules regarding the transport of cattle into city limits. On Saturday, BJP MP Mangal Lodha led a delegation of Jains to Home Minister R R Patil, asking that police man all entry points to prevent cattle being brought into the city.On October 2, a riot was averted when over 100 protestors led by Lodha, includingmembers and cow protection groups, demonstrated at Agripada police station, demanding the confiscation of allegedly healthy cattle that had been brought for sacrifice (only unfit cattle are allowed to be slaughtered). To prevent a confrontation with Muslim residents, the police asked Advocate Yasmin Shaikh, a mohalla committee member, to intervene. She managed to avert a riot and six animals, certified fit for, were surrendered under her supervision.It was precisely to put an end to this cycle of communal tension - and to find a solution to the inability of the city’s only official abattoir to handle the large-scale animal sacrifice during Bakri Eid - that former police officer S K Pathan and Yasmin Shaikh filed a petition in the high court last year. It was opposed by two cow protection groups. The court ordered a committee, headed by former police commissioner Julio Rebeiro, to find a solution by January 2013. Rebeiro submitted his report to the government in August, but there has been no hearing in the matter since June, despite two requests to the chief justice by the petitioners, and the matter being mentioned twice in court. On Monday, the petitioners plan to mention it again.Rebeiro had earlier, as head of the Mohalla Committee movement, written to the authorities about setting up temporary slaughter houses in Muslim areas during Bakri Eid. BMC rules allow this, and it’s done in Thane, Mumbra and Navi Mumbai. But in his report, finalised after consultations with the BMC and police, Rebeiro has recommended such slaughterhouses only for goats. "The sacrifice of big-horned animals within city limits cannot be permitted both for reasons of law and order and hygiene. These are the very reasons the abattoir was shifted from Bandra to Deonar," he told Mumbai Mirror.Interestingly, NCP spokesman Mohammed Arshad, who met additional Municipal Commissioner Manisha Mhaiskar and the Deonar authorities last week, learnt that efforts are on to create temporary slaughterhouses outside city limits in the east and west, but only after the court gives its decision.But policemen in Muslim areas in south Mumbai, caught between what they describe as an increasingly aggressive Bajrang Dal and Muslim religious sentiments, feel that courtordered temporary slaughterhouses for all animals are the only possible solution. Nizamuddin Rahi, president of the Congress’s minority cell, agrees. "The BMC owns enough open grounds, which can be used; we’ll pay whatever charges the authorities levy. Till the court passes such an order, the police should stop harassing us. Or let the BMC pass a rule that, as with camels and elephants, no cattle will be allowed within city limits.’’Cattle are cheaper than goats, and one big animal can be sacrificed by seven people; hence the preference for them. Angry Muslims in Agripada allege that large-scale violations of rules during Hindu festivals are overlooked by the police; why can’t the same laxity be shown in Muslim areas for Bakri Eid? Instead, the harassment is accompanied by large-scale extortion. Formercorporator Ayub Ansari says, "We have never objected to any Hindu festival; in fact we welcome the Lalbagcha Raja procession."Last year, after the government’s assurance in court that those bringing cattle into the city would not be stopped, the festival went off peacefully. But this is election year, and last month’s riot over Ganpati "donations" in Agripada didn’t help matters, say the police.