Headlines
Anti-beef ban march in Mumbai on Tuesday
Mumbai, March 23
Thousands of people,
including butchers, students and political leaders, will walk together
in a march here on Tuesday to protest the ban on beef in Maharashtra, an
activist said on Monday.
"The livelihood of over a million
people directly or indirectly engaged in the beef trade and allied
industry has been adversely affected by the ban on beef in the state,"
said Sarvashramik Sangh secretary Vijay Dalvi, one of the organisers of
the march.
"This has hiked the prices of other non-vegetarian
items like mutton, chicken and fish which, in turn, will lead to
spiraling in the menu prices in restaurants and eateries," said Dalvi.
The march will start from Deonar Abattoir and culminate at Azad Maidan, he said.
Besides
the beef industry representatives, around 150 students of Tata
Institute of Social Sciences, NGOs, leaders of the Congress, the
Nationalist Congress Party, the Samajwadi Party and others are expected
to join the march.
According to a state government survey, Dalvi
said, there were 978,000 licensees engaged directly in the trade in
beef, mutton and chicken in the state, of which an estimated 20 percent
were in the beef trade.
Besides, there are allied categories like
packers, tanners, small farmers who used to sell their animals for
slaughter and others who have been hit by the ban.
"Contrary to
perceptions, all communities are engaged in a big way in the beef trade,
including Hindus, Muslims, Dalits, OBCs, etc., and they are all
suffering now," Dalvi claimed.
Lawyer Vishal Seth and student
Shaina Sena have filed petitions in the Bombay High Court last week
challenging the implementation of the the Maharashtra Animal
Preservation (Amendment) Act, which has banned slaughter, consumption
and trading of beef.
A division bench of Justice V.M. Kanade and Justice A.R. Joshi is likely to take up the petition for hearing in due course.