Reuters photo.
Srinagar: A Hindu organisation representing the Kashmiri Pandits has demanded a blanket ban on the meat of cow and other bovine animals since the sight of the meat hanging on hooks in meat shops there is “disturbing”, Deccan Chronicle reported.
The organisation wanted a scrapped law that prohibited the slaughter of cows, bulls, and calves from being reinstated in the valley.
The president of the Kashmiri Pandit Sangharsh Samiti (KPSS), Sanjay Tickoo, said on Tuesday that there is a rampant growth in beef trade in the valley, and meat shops are displaying carcasses, which has unsettled native Hindus as well as Indian Hindu tourists. According to his claims, 95 per cent of the tourists in the valley are Indian Hindus.
He claimed that the discomfort the meat shops are posing is “real” and “the questions valid”, and the administration is not taking action in congruence with the group’s demand.
The Telegraph reports that the slaughter of cows and other bovine animals was banned by the erstwhile Dogra rulers, and it continued after 1947, but the laws were repealed after the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act in 2019.
When no law was banning the consumption of beef in Jammu and Kashmir, Tickoo claimed that beef outlets and slaughterhouses were operating illegally and that their numbers were growing unabated. He also claims that the current administration is backing the beef trade in the region.
However, the administration has informed us that most of the meat shops in the Muslim-majority valley of Kashmir sell carabeef or buffen (buffalo meat), but not cow meat, according to the Deccan Chronicle.