Rajnath Singh backs ban on beef in Maharashtra

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday justified the ban on beef in Maharashtra saying that his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government would now allow slaughter of cows.

He made the comments at a gathering of a religious community in Indore.

Early in March this year, President Pranab Mukherjee gave his assent to the Maharashtra Animal Preservation Bill, which had been pending for 20 years, extending a ban on the killing of cows, considered sacred by Hindus, to bulls and bullocks.

The law, which calls for five years in jail and 10,000 rupees fine for anyone violating it, will make illegal slaughters much more difficult.

Singh said that he had proposed the ban first in 2003, when he was the country's agriculture minister, but he could not get the bill passed in Parliament as his party did not have the requisite numbers in the two houses.

"How can we accept cow slaughter in this country? We will try our best to ban cow slaughter and I assure you that we will do whatever possible to build a consensus on this matter across the country," said Singh.

"Recently for Maharashtra, where a coalition government was formed between BJP and Shiv Sena, a bill on beef ban was lying in the interior ministry for the last 12 years. Chief Minister, Devendra Fadnavis said that he wanted my signature on that bill so that it could be sent for the President's approval. I did not waste a second and signed it after which a complete ban on beef was implemented across Maharashtra," he added.

Maharashtra has widened its ban this month to cover meat from bulls and bullocks. The states of Jharkhand and Haryana, also ruled by the BJP, are looking for ways to discourage slaughter of livestock.