The Uttar Pradesh government has given outlet chains, retailers and department stores 15 days to withdraw any halal-certified food items from their shelves. It has also directed 92 State-based manufacturers, which were getting halal certification from non-certified organisations for their goods, to recall their products within U.P. or repackage them.
The State on November 18 banned the production, storage, distribution and sale of halal-certified food products. In the aftermath, it investigated roughly 500 establishments across different districts and 97 places in the state in search of halal-certified products and seized roughly 2,500 kg of halal-certified products till now.
The government has also transferred the case registered at Hazratganj police station against four firms for alleged irregularities in halal certification of products to the Special Task Force (STF) of U.P. police.
The FIR was registered under Sections 120B (criminal conspiracy), 384 (extortion), 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document), 153A (promoting enmity between different groups) and 298 (intent to wound religious feelings) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) on a complaint by a Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) office-bearer who alleged that some companies certified certain products as halal to increase the sales among people from a certain community for monetary gains, and this amounts to forgery and cheating.
