Suspecting beef, vehicle with animal bones set afire in Faridabad
transportation of beef, a group people set on fire a vehicle carrying animal bones in the jungles of Aravallis in Faridabad late on Saturday. The vehicle was on its way to Hapur in UP from Bhadkal in Faridabad.
Police said the mob from Anangpur village in Surajkund beat up the driver and drove the Tata 407 to the jungles where they set it on fire. Two fire tenders were rushed to control the fire. “We have registered a case against over 50 people, mostly youth from the village under different provisions of IPC and SC/ST Act. We arrested five of them who were produced in court,” said a police officer. The arrested men are Nishant, Sagar, Parveen, Kuldeep and Deepak — all in their 20s — of Anangpur village.
“We found that the contractor had licence from the Municipal Corporation of Faridabad to lift dead animals in Faridabad,” the police official said.
“I was on a scooty following my Tata 407 when someone abruptly kept his vehicle in front of it and directed my driver to come down,” said Karjan Singh.
A resident of Molarband village in Delhi, Singh claimed he had got contract from MCF to lift dead animals. “Bad smell comes from vehicles transporting animal bones. The youths at Anangpur chowk suspected that our canter was carrying beef. We said we had permission to carry animal bones but they did not pay heed to our pleas,” Singh told Hindustan Times.
MCF officials confirmed they auction areas to contractors to pick up dead animals. “We have allotted proper sites on the Faridabad-Gurgaon road to such contractors to dump such dead animals,” said an official of MCF.
In Faridabad there are three such contractors. “We take the skin and bones of the dead animals and sell them elsewhere,” said Singh. “Generally we transport bones to factories in Hapur, Bulandshahr and Meerut.”
Police have launched search to nab the remaining suspects. “Since the victim’s are from backward classes, a case was registered under the SC/ST Act,” Bhram Prakash of Surajkund police station, who initially investigated the case, said.
The CPM will organise “evening dharnas” in 2,000 places across in Kerala on June 2. The date coincides with BJP chief Amit Shah’s three-day tour to the southern state, where the party is trying to make inroads.
Focus on cows, considered sacred by Hindus, and beef has increased since the BJP won power in 2014. The party’s ideological parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, has long pushed for a nationwide ban on cattle slaughter and trade.
But a beef ban was viewed as an attempt to limit people’s freedom to choose what they eat.
Besides, the curbs on cattle trade have the potential to alienate Muslims who dominate the Rs 100,000-crore meat business in India. Hindu hardliners and cow vigilante groups have been increasingly asserting themselves since 2014.
Muslims are considered a key support base of Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress, the CPM and Congress. Banerjee wondered why the trade curbs were announced on May 23, just before the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
The BJP attacked the Congress after functionaries of the opposition party’s youth wing killed a cow in Kannur and distributed the meat to people on Saturday.
“This is shameful and in many ways provocative. Political opposition happens but it is unfortunate that such an act has been committed, that too by Youth Congress workers,” Union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said.
The Congress suspended three functionaries associated with the slaughter and party vice president Rahul Gandhi called the incident barbaric, saying his party won’t tolerate such acts.
Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said such action by party workers was “completely unacceptable” and “alien to civil society, our culture and founding principles”.
The party was in damage-control mode after Kerala BJP president Kummanam Rajasekharan posted the video of the incident on Twitter, calling it “cruelty at its peak”. The video triggered national outrage.
Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, who had clamped down on illegal slaughterhouses and cattle smuggling soon after coming to power this April, questioned the opposition parties’ silence on the incident.
The 44-year-old priest-politician, an active promoter of cow conservation, asked: “Why are the people who staged vociferous protests over the incidents in DU and JNU silent on the issue?”
His target was political leaders who supported students involved in alleged anti-national functions in the two premier universities in the national capital.
Amid the party’s condemnation of the Kerala incident, a senior BJP leader of the Garo Hills in Meghalaya allayed fears over a beef ban in his state, which goes to the polls next year.
“In Meghalaya, most of the BJP leaders eat beef. The question of banning beef does not arise in a state like Meghalaya,” Bernard N Marak said and promised to bring down beef prices if voted to power.
Most of the protests on Monday over the cattle trade rules were recorded in Kerala and neighbouring Tamil Nadu, where cow slaughter is not banned.
In IIT Madras, about 80 students organised a beef festival on the campus of the country’s premier engineering institute. “It is our democratic right to choose our food,” said Abhinav Surya, a final-year student.
Tamil Nadu’s main opposition DMK has planned a protest on May 31. DMK working president MK Stalin will lead the protest in Chennai, the party said, adding “the fundamental right to choice of food granted by the Constitution has been snatched away”.
In the ISC exam, 39,703 boys and 33,930 girls appeared and out of which 37,872 boys and 33,161 girls passed the exam respectively.
Region-wise, south dominated in both forms of the exams. In ICSE, the southern region applicants achieved a pass percentage of 99.64 and in ISC, the region achieved 98.97.
Seema Sapru, the principal of the school where Ananya studied, said,“I’m delighted. I cannot tell you how happy I am. She is a wonderful child. She’s not only brilliant in academics but also in creative writing.”
“She has an inclination for creative writing. She also loves to play the piano. Needless to say, she devoted a number of hours in studies,” Ananya’s father Chinmoy Kumar Maity, who is a doctor, told HT.
The second rank in ISC was shared by four students, including Ayushi Srivastava of CMS Gomti Nagar in Lucknow, Devesh Lakhotia of Kolkata’s St Xavier’s Collegiate School, Rishika Dhariwal of Mumbai’s Jamnabai Narsee School, and Keerthana Srikanth of Scotish High International School in Gurgaon. All of them obtained 99.25%. The third rank was shared by five students with 99% marks.
Named after Pedong town in Sikkim, Pedongi joined the army in 1962 and died in Bareilly in 1998. Mules are assigned hoof numbers for identification.
“AT is a fading story in the army with technology providing options to replace animals. We thought it would be a fitting tribute to Pedongi, who also finds place in the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest serving military mule,” said Lieutenant General BS Sandhu, who retired as director general of supplies and transport on April 30.
An April 2017 army report highlighted the need to deploy ATVs and drones in the northern and eastern sectors to assist swifter movement of stores and equipment through rugged terrain. If the army has its way, such vehicles could replace mules in two years.
“Technology has its limitations. There’s no way AT units can be completely disbanded, given the kind of terrain where our army is deployed,” said Lieutenant General SPS Katewa, who retired as the Commandant of the ASC Centre and College in Bengaluru.
Mules played a crucial role during the 1999 Kargil war. Katewa said mules were moved from the eastern sector and Jammu region to Ladakh without acclimatisation. “The animals performed a splendid job. Their importance was reinforced and plans to disband AT units were shelved,” said Katewa.
POLICE SAID THE MOB BEAT UP THE DRIVER, DROVE THE TATA 407 TO THE JUNGLES WHERE THEY SET IT ON FIRE
“The label hardly says anything about how much of a healthy person’s daily needs are met after consuming a serving and how much of it is left. The labels are quite convoluted for a common man to understand,” said Agarwal.
The panel that has been working on labelling guidelines is the same panel that worked on formulating country’s food fortification guidelines. The panel is also focusing on defining junk food.
“We broadly term high-fat, high-sugar items as junk that lead to obesity and other complications but this panel is getting into the details and coming up with a standard definition,” said Agarwal.
The food regulator, however, isn’t sure about deadline for implementation of the regulations.
“It will be difficult for us at this level to say when the regulations will be implemented, as the process requires several layers of consultations and approval. We are trying our best to be as fast as possible,” said Agarwal.