Pakistan protests against beef ban in Jammu and Kashmir

Scores of protesters took to the streets of Muzaffarabad in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir on Wednesday to rally against the ban on the slaughter of cows in Kashmir.

On September 10, the Jammu and Kashmir High Court had ordered state police to ensure strict implementation of a law banning the sale of beef after a petitioner argued the slaughter of bovine animals hurt the sentiments of some communities.

The ruling comes in a year when several states have banned beef trade and cow slaughter, stoking an ever-swirling debate with several right-wing organisations supporting these moves.

The protesters marched through the streets of the city chanting slogans against the Bharatiya Janata Party led NDA government in India.

"Where leaders of Hurriyat Conference are being arrested without any reason, where bogus cases are being filed for raising the green flag of Pakistan, there the extremist Indian Prime minister Narendra Modi has clamped a ban on the slaughter of cows. He has tried to bring a religious split into the freedom movement of Kashmir," said Shaukat Javed Mir, media advisor to the Prime Minister of Azad Kashmir.

The protesters later slaughtered a cow in a market square in defiance of the new law in Kashmir.