Mumbai Mirror: Mumbai: Friday, August 24, 2018.
Mirror’s RTI
query reveals 85% positive cases; activists allege ban has led to illegal
trade; blame forceful implementation of the Act.
After the
implementation of the Maharashtra Animal Preservation (Amendment) Act in March
2015, 85 per cent complaints about illegal beef primarily in Mumbai, Pune and
Nagpur have been found to be genuine. Under the Right to Information Act,
this correspondent sought information from the Forensic Science Laboratory
(FSL) in Santacruz and found that 753 out of 992 samples seized and tested
during various raids between March 2015 and November 2017 were confirmed as
beef. “Percentage of positive cases was 85.86,” the RTI reply said.
Blaming the
government’s forceful steps to ban beef, activists have alleged that it has led
to a rise in the illegal trade. According to the RTI reply, during the
aforesaid period in Mumbai, of the 427 seized samples 397 were confirmed as
cattle meat. While 101 out of 227 seized samples tested positive in Pune, 255
out of 293 sized samples tested positive in Nagpur. The Santacruz laboratory is
the only testing lab in the state; it takes four to five days to ascertain if
the meat sample is beef or not.
Reacting to
the data, Gandhian Dr Vivek Korde said the people have been forced into illegal
trade after the Act was implemented. “Beef was the cheapest source of protein
for the poor and it was suddenly taken out of their menu. Food habits cannot be
changed easily. Lots of Hindus were also eating beef but a wrong perception led
to its ban,” Dr Korde claimed.
According to
social activist Dr Bharat Patankar, people will find ways to eat beef. “With
protein sources like chicken, mutton, pulses being expensive, beef was the only
cheap source. The fact that it is still being caught in raids means that people
want it. I remember, in the 1960s, beef keema was very famous in Mumbai. It was
also wrong to connect the beef-eating habit to Christians and Muslims alone. Hindus
eat beef as well,” Dr Patankar alleged.
Fauzan Alvi,
spokesperson of the All India Meat and Livestock Exporters Association, has
noticed an acute shortage of beef for consumption. “The illegal trade probably
involves the bull, as bull slaughter was allowed in Maharashtra prior to the
Act came into force in 2015. After the new government came to power, the
slaughter of bull and bullocks was also banned,” Alvi said. Though the Animal
Prevention Act was amended in 2015, the state ban on cow slaughter has been in
force since the 1960s.
.JPG)
.JPG)
