Leader of the Opposition and former chief minister Omar Abdullah Monday said bills seeking abolishment of beef ban laws had been sabotaged to save the government.
Talking to reporters outside the Legislative Assembly, Omar said the State government moved to the Supreme Court seeking a decision into a plea against two different orders of the State High Court pertaining to slaughter of the bovines and enforcement of ban on sale of beef.“Why did the State move to the Supreme Court when the State legislature has powers to amend the law,” he said referring to the amendment in the 150-year old law, which prohibits slaughter of cows and sale of beef in Jammu Kashmir.
The Leader of the Opposition was referring to disallowing of discussion on the beef ban in the State by the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, Kavinder Gupta.
Omar said the previous government led by Mufti Muhammad Sayeed had in 2003 too sabotaged the women’s reservation bill and the House had never discussed the issue since then.
The former chief minister said he feared bills against beef ban would meet the same fate as the women’s reservation bill.
Omar’s NC had moved a bill in the Legislative Assembly seeking to decriminalize slaughter of cows and sale and consumption of beef in the State.
In Jammu Kashmir, the only Muslim-majority state of India, the announcement calling for implementing the ban on cow slaughter evoked widespread response among the Muslim community with most believing that the PDP-BJP-PC government led by Mufti Muhammad Sayeed was implementing the Hindutava agenda.
The HC decision on implementing beef ban prompted people to go for a complete shutdown across Kashmir with calls for mass cow slaughter on Eid-ul-Adha, the religious festival of Muslims.
In Maharaja Gulab Singh’s time, cow slaughter was punishable with life imprisonment while Maharaja Ranbir Singh ordered slitting a woman’s tongue for beating a cow that had torn some clothes she had hung out to dry.
