Condemning the ban on sale of cattle for slaughter, the Tamil Nadu Thowheed Jamaath (TNJT) cadre organised a massive demonstration at Melapalayam here on Friday. A large number of women participated in the protest.
The protestors, led by S. Zubair Ahmed, president of TNTJ’s Tirunelveli East District, said the BJP-led Union Government, which had miserably failed in all fronts during the past three years, had imposed the ban in a bid to divert the people’s attention from its failures. Besides denying the poor access to a healthy diet, the ban would also deny the people their basic right of choice to food.
“The ban will drive a wedge among people and trigger unrest, especially among the poor and farmers, who cannot sell their aged unproductive cattle,” said Mr. Ahmed.
Even as Ramzan and Bakrid were approaching, the Centre had imposed the ban with ulterior motive, he alleged. “It’s an attack on the diet of Muslims and their right to eat bull and camel meat.”
The protestors said the Tamil Nadu Government, like the Kerala and Puducherry Governments, should openly declare that it would not impose the ban in the State, said M.S. Suleiman, state secretary of TNTJ.
Party office-bearers S. Yousuf Ali, K.A. Syed Ali, Abdul Jabbar and A.C. Maideen participated in the demonstration.
Cadre of the Social Democratic Party of India, led by the party’s Tirunelveli Assembly segment president N. Mohammed Kasim, staged a demonstration at Pettai against the ban. They said the ban denied the rights guaranteed by the Indian Constitution to its citizens to choose their food and culture.
District secretary of Aathi Thamizhar Peravai K.K. Kalaikannan and M. Sudalairaj Communist Party of India (Marxist Leninist) were among those who spoke at the demonstration.
Meanwhile, a group of advocates staged a demonstration in front of the District Court premises on Friday, condemning the attack on Suraj, a research scholar from Indian Institute of Technology – Madras, for participating in the beef feast organised on IIT premises recently.
“If the police refuse to take unbiased action in connection with the attack on Mr. Suraj, and similar attacks continue in future, the rightwing perpetrators will be paid back in the same coin,” they warned.
