AMN /
Adding to fuel to the controversy over Beef, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Thursday said that if Muslims wanted to live India they have to give up eating Beef.
“Muslim rahein, magar is desh mein beef khaana chhodna hi hoga unko. Yahan ki manyata hai gau (Muslims can continue to live in this country, but they will have to give up eating beef. The cow is an article of faith here),” Khattar said in an Interview to Indian Express.
He was responding to questions on how he viewed the Dadri incident and whether or not such incidents would communally polarise the country.
An outsider in Haryana politics and a virtual unknown until his emergence in the elections last year, 61-year-old Khattar has had a nearly four-decade association with the RSS. He counts the Haryana Gauvansh Sanrakshan and Gausamvardhan legislation, adopted by the Haryana Assembly banning cow slaughter, as one of the achievements of his government. Violation is punishable with a 10-year jail term, and beef-eating can land an offender in prison for five years.
He described the Dadri incident as the “result of a misunderstanding” and said “both sides” had committed wrongs. “It should not have happened – from both sides.” He claimed that the victim made a “halki tippani (loose comment) about the cow which hurt the sentiments of people who subsequently attacked him.
“But I say that attacking and killing the person was also wrong,” Khattar said, adding that those who were responsible for it could be prosecuted under several sections of the law.
Manohar Lal Khattar, however , said that he has been misquoted in an interview published in an English daily today. He said that he has not used such words like ‘Muslims can continue to live in this country but they will have to give up eating beef because the cow is associated with faith in the country’.
But the newspaper has released his audio to prove its interview.