Kollam: In the first ever public protest in the State resonating with the beef ban theory of the Sangh Parivar, the BJP observed a hartal on Wednesday demanding the shutting down of beef stalls in a village in Kollam.
At the same time, raising slogans of secularism, the CPM and its youth wing DYFI conducted a ‘Beef fest’ serving beef dishes free in public.
Tension prevailed in the area with BJP supporters and CPM workers gathered on either side at the Nallila junction. A posse of police has been deployed to prevent any untoward incident in the area. The hartal observed at Nallila in Nedumpana panchayat is allegedly the latest in a series of disputes raised by the BJP against beef stalls functioning in the panchayat market there.
“The BJP is trying to implement the Sangh parivar agenda because they have chosen this area which is thickly populated by people of minority communities. They are currently on a test case to spark communal violence with an intention to spread it to other areas also. There have never been such communal issues in the area. The BJP has held the hartal in Nallila alone, and not the entire Nedumpana panchayat, focusing on the minorities there,” Thomas Koshy, Nallila ward member told DC. He added that the BJP had been frequently asking beef sellers for "unnecessary" donations in the name of events that never take place.
BJP workers conducted a march towards the Nedumpana panchayat office demanding the denial of permission for beef sales and the prosecution of the vendors in the market.
Several meat stalls function in the market owned by the Nedumpana panchayat for the last several years, selling beef supplied from the Corporation-owned slaughter house in Kollam.
