New Delhi: Expressing strong objection to the new central government ruling that cows and buffaloes sold at animal markets across India can no longer be used for slaughter, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, is expected to write to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, according to sources.
The state is expected to implement any changes to existing rules only after a response to the chief minister’s letter.
“If they have banned the slaughter of cattle today, they will ban the consumption of fish tomorrow,” Vijayan retorted.
“New livestock regulation law will rob lakhs of jobs, cripple leather industry. Primarily an attack on our poor, dalits & farmers,” he said in a tweet.
The All India Meat and Livestock Exporters Association agreed and said the decision will badly hit livelihoods. “It is the unproductive cattle that arrives in large numbers for sale as their maintenance cost per day is quite high. The high-yielding milching animals rarely arrive for sale,” spokesperson of the association, Fauzan Alavi, said in Lucknow.