Congress holds ‘beef festival’ in Kerala after the state police dropped beef from its menu

Congress workers organised a beef festival in front of Mukkam police station, in Kozhikkode in protest against the exclusion of beef from the menu for police trainees.

Earlier, beef was served here twice a week with other non-vegetarian foods. The new circular banning beef from the menu came in effect from February 15.

Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee general secretary K Praveen Kumar inaugurated the beef festival. Among the other Congress leaders who organised the protest are Congress block committee secretary MT Ashraf, KSU (state unit of NSU) district general secretary Muhammed Dishal, Youth Congress secretary VM Jamnas. The Muslim League also held a similar protest, serving beef in front of police stations in Palakkad districts. They alleged that the CPM-led LDF government is implementing the ‘Sangh Parivar agenda’ in the state.

However, the senior officials of the police academy explained that the new menu, without red meat, is constituted on the basis of health recommendations.

V P Pramod Kumar, the deputy director of public relations for Kerala Police, said they had not ‘omitted beef at all’. “The food committees of the training centres have been asked to decide the menu based on locally available material,” he added.

In 2017, Youth Congress activists had slaughtered a cow in public in the name of protest against the Union Government’s decision to ban sale and purchase of cattle from animal markets for slaughter.