Bengaluru: A man and his 11-year-old daughter were waylaid in Karnataka’s Mangaluru Saturday for allegedly carrying beef. The district police later lodged a case against the father for transporting the meat “without bills”.
“It is the police’s duty to stop those transporting beef illegally without any bills from an authorised place. Cases will be lodged for both moral policing and beef transport,” read a statement by Mangaluru Police Commissioner Sudheer Kumar Reddy.
According to the Mangaluru police, Abdul Sattar Mullarpatna and his 11-year-old daughter were travelling by two-wheeler carrying around 19 kg of beef in 35 packets Saturday morning when they were accosted on Malali Narlapadavi Road in the coastal city’s Bajpe locality.
Two people, identified as Sumit Bhandari (21) and Rajat Naik (30), allegedly blocked the two-wheeler the father-daughter were on with their Tata Sumo vehicle. The two fell as a result and the young girl suffered burn injuries on her leg from the bike’s hot silencer.
Bhandari and Naik then allegedly assaulted Sattar, who fled from the scene.
“Sumit (Bhandari) and Rajat (Naik) were called to the (police) station for enquiry. They were questioned separately,” said a Mangaluru police officer.
The 11-year-old girl’s statement was recorded in the hospital. She said her father was beaten up by the two men who waylaid them.
This comes at a time when instances of moral policing are rampant in Karnataka, with many cases of attacks on couples over allegations of ‘love jihad’ and other community-based assaults being reported in several districts of the southern state.
In Karnataka’s communally sensitive coastal districts, there have always been simmering tensions between groups with self-styled ‘gau rakshaks’ and other vigilantes often taking the law into their own hands.
In September, some self-styled vigilante groups waylaid a truck near Belagavi district’s Kagwad, dragged out the driver and assaulted him before setting fire to the truck. It was alleged that the truck was transporting beef meat to neighbouring Telangana.
In 2021, the then B.S.Yediyurappa-led BJP government had passed the Karnataka Prevention of Slaughter and Preservation of Cattle Act, which penalises people who slaughter cattle aged below 13 years with a jail term of 3 to 7 years or with a fine ranging from Rs 50,000 to Rs 5 lakh.
This law also has a provision for protection of those “acting in good faith” to save cattle from being slaughtered, which was seen as a move to safeguard vigilantes.
Though the Siddaramaiah-led Congress had called for repealing of this law in the run-up to the 2023 assembly elections, the government has so far not made any changes to it.
Karnataka supplies beef to neighbouring states like Goa, Kerala, and Telangana. The state also recorded beef exports of around $2.5 million in 2019-20 to the UAE, Qatar etc., according to government data.
The same fiscal, leather exports from Karnataka account for around $8.25 million.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)
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