The raging beef issue in India is spreading far and wide and taking abnormal proportions, with people now being killed or assaulted on mere suspicion or rumour, as it happened in Jammu region’s Rajouri town where a policeman was attacked when he was seen with a buffalo.
The reaction to Friday’s incident was a partial shutdown in Rajouri on Saturday as people protested the attack on the policeman.
The policeman was carrying his milch buffalo on Friday when some people attacked him, alleging that he was taking the animal for slaughter.
After Muslims protested, consumer affairs and public distribution minister Chowdhary Zulfikar Ali assured them a probe into the incident.
All shops in Rajouri remained shut while vehicles remained off road on Saturday.
A police officer said, “We are keeping a close eye on the situation. All precautions have been taken to maintain communal harmony in the town.”
Protesters also blocked the Rajouri-Thanamandi road demanding arrest of people involved in the attack.
This incident comes just days after the killing’ of a Muslim man in Dadri, Greater Noida, on the suspicion of eating and possessing beef. This incident led to a countrywide protests and almost all political parties have reacted to the issue.
The beef eating issue has a huge irony in the Indian context.
According to a report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and quoted by the Time magazine, India has been the largest exporter of beef in the world since last year and that it has extended its lead over second-ranked Brazil with a projected total of 2.4 million tons exported in 2015 against Brazil’s two million.
The USDA report, released this month, predicts that global beef exports overall will rise to a record 10.2 million tons, 3% higher than the October 2014 forecast.
In terms of value, beef has also overtaken basmati rice as India’s largest agricultural food export, according to data from the country’s Agricultural and Processed Food Products’ Export Development Authority, reported the Economic Times newspaper.