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DEHRADUN: Uttarakhand High Court on Thursday allowed the slaughtering of animals for the Bakr Eid festival in Manglaur town of Haridwar district. The HC stayed the Uttarakhand government’s order on a blanket ban on animal slaughter in the entire district on an intervention application filed by one Faisal Hussain, a resident of Muslim dominated Manglaur town in the district.
Dr Kartikey Hari Gupta, the counsel of Hussain, told The New Indian, “Honorable court has allowed the slaughter of animals in the legally compliant slaughterhouse of Manglaur town only for the celebration of Bakr Eid on July 10. The court has stayed the government order for the festival only and the Constitutional validity shall be examined in further dates.”
Further, the court has directed that on Bakr Eid, slaughtering of animals shall be done only in a legally compliant slaughterhouse which is already constructed in ‘Public-Private Partnership’ mode by Manglaur Municipality.
The court further directed the intervener to ensure that no slaughtering must be done outside the legally compliant slaughterhouse on the occasion of Bakr Eid.
The HC also directed Manglaur Municipality to inform and persuade people to slaughter animals only in a legally compliant slaughterhouse already constructed in Manglaur Municipal area.
On March 3, 2021, the Haridwar district was declared a slaughter-free area by the state government through an order which was challenged in the HC.
Faisal Hussain, a resident of Manglaur town in Haridwar district, approached the court praying that the slaughter of animals is an essential religious practice in Islam and for July 10 Bakr Eid festival, the slaughtering of animals should be allowed in a legally compliant slaughterhouse which is already constructed in Manglaur Municipality area since last one year.
However, it could not operate due to a blanket ban by the government order dated March 3, 2021, on the slaughtering of animals in the entire district of Haridwar.
Dr Gupta showed the court the photographs of last year’s Bakr Eid festival in which despite all bans large-scale slaughtering of animals was done on the open streets in the Manglaur area. He further argued that banning the slaughtering without making the legally compliant slaughterhouse operational will not solve any problem.
Notably, the Manglaur Municipality area has an 87.45% of the Muslim population which is going to celebrate Bakr Eid on July 10.
Manglaur town is about 45 km away from Haridwar town and if the slaughtering of animals is allowed in the slaughterhouse in Manglaur, the religious sentiments of Hindus will not be harmed, the intervener said in his application.
Interestingly, the HC in the year 2018 had directed that no “cow or cow’s progeny or any camel shall be slaughtered on the day of Eid-ul-Juha (Bakr-Eid)” and no animals including “goat/sheep/buffalo shall be sacrificed in an open space, on any public street or any thoroughfare in front of any place of worship” on the day of Eid-ul-Juha (Bakr Eid).
The court had also added in the order that prohibited animals, as defined under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960 will not be sacrificed.
The court in a series of directions had also directed that “the blood of animals shall not be permitted to go into drains”, “the blood and offal shall not be dumped in any open space throughout the State of Uttarakhand” and had added that the municipal corporations, municipal bodies and rural and local bodies throughout the state to remove the remains of sacrificed animals, if any, with due promptitude.
The court had also directed the state district administration across 13 districts to ensure proper safety around the places where prayers are to be permitted.
