The organisers of the festival said it was “aimed to celebrate good food”. (Representational Image)Organisers of the Kolkata beef festival cancelled the event after receiving threat calls. The festival, first named ‘Kolkata Beef Festival’ and later named ‘Kolkata Beep Festival’, was scheduled to be held at a café in the city on June 23.
The organisers of the festival said it was “aimed to celebrate good food”. “Our motive was to organise a food festival… However, we have received a number of calls since we put out the event in social media. Some of the calls were a direct threat. Since we cannot ensure the security of the visitors we have decided to cancel it,” said Arjun Kar, founder of Accidental Note, the company which organised the festival.
A post on the Facebook page of the event said, “Yesterday, Arjun received 300+ calls, a lot of them to show support, but a lot of them were direct threats… Keyboard warriors kept abusing us and sending us hate filled messages, and some seemed genuinely hurt by the idea of the festival. Most importantly, we cannot ensure the safety of all of you amazing people who were planning to attend and our team.” ENS
