SRINAGAR: Lawmakers from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) tried to assault an opposition member in legislature of India-held Kashmir on Thursday over eating beef.

Television footage showed several BJP legislators pushing and shoving Abdul Rashid in the Jammu and Kashmir state assembly for holding what they called a “provocative beef party”.

Footage showed legislators rounding on Mr Rashid, trying to hit him as others held them back.

Mr Rashid said that about 10 to 14 BJP members “just pounced on me as soon as I entered the house”, saying he had feared for his life.

“No amount of condemnation can be enough for what happened today,” opposition leader Omar Abdullah told reporters outside the assembly in Srinagar.

“Trying to beat up a member, this is the first time I have ever seen something like this in any house,” said Mr Abdullah, whose party walked out of the chamber over the attack.

“Do I assault everyone who eats pork or (drinks) alcohol?”

Mr Rashid served beef kebabs at the party this week in protest against a ban on killing and eating cows in the India-held state.

Tempers flared in the disputed region after a top court last month ordered that the longstanding but little enforced prohibition be strictly implemented.

The attack comes as a wider debate rages in Hindu-majority India over hard-liners’ intolerance of Muslims and other religious minorities, many of whom eat beef as a source of protein.

Late last month, a mob beat a Muslim man to death in Uttar Pradesh state over rumours that he had eaten beef. The man was dragged from his home and attacked while his 22-year-old son was also severely injured.

Narendra Modi’s government wants a nationwide ban on the slaughter of cows, which is prohibited in just some of the states.

President Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday called for officially secular India’s tradition of tolerance to be upheld, in what was seen as an attempt to calm raging anger over the issue.

Published in Dawn, October 9th, 2015

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