As a Lok Sabha MP, Yogi Adityanath introduced five bills in Parliament in recent times, including ban on cow slaughter. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) poll manifesto also stated shutting of illegal slaughter houses and blanket ban on all the mechanised slaughter houses as one of its prime objectives in Uttar Pradesh. The crackdown on slaughter houses across the state with Adityanath as the chief minister, therefore, does not come as a surprise.
The legendary Tunday Kababi in Lucknow is the victim of the chief minister's latest measure. After altering its menue, the restaurant is in the brink of shutting down too.
“The shop was shut the entire day on Wednesday. The meat was not available," Scroll.in reported owner Mohammad Usman as saying.
“If we don’t get meat, how will we run the shop?" Usman added.
Speaking to Scroll.in, Usman expressed apprehensions about a meat shortage in the state. He asserted that rumours related to shortage of chicken and fish in Kanpur were doing the rounds.
The Akbari Gate outlet that serves buffalo meat remained shut. However, the Aminabad outlet which also serves chicken and mutton kebabs was open. The visiting customers could only relish the chicken and mutton varieties here.
Many consider a visit to Lucknow incomplete without tasting the kababs served in this restaurant. The eatery was opened centuries ago by chef Haji Murad Ali.
Slaughter houses and meat shops in ashes
A mob allegedly set ablaze three meat shops owned by members of the Muslim community in Hathras on Tuesday.
In Meerut, three buffalo meat processing plants were sealed by authorities on Wednesday. While the owner claimed that they had the papers, the officials refused to accept the documents saying "they were not following the terms of the licence".
Another slaughterhouse was raided and sealed by a joint team of Pollution Control Board, municipal authorities, administrative and police officials in Varanasi on Wednesday, a report in NDTV said.
In Ghaziabad, 10 meat shops were shut down while many other shop owners in the area closed their shop fearing police action. The region reportedly has 210 illegal meat shops.
According to NDTV, officials claimed that 34 illegal meat shops and slaughter houses have been shut down in Ghaziabad since March 15.