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 A beef party and a bandh will greet BJP president Amit Shah during his maiden visit to Meghalaya tomorrow.

The Thma U Rangli-Juki (TUR), a pressure group, is organising the ’beef party’ in which it will discuss attack by Sangh Parivar outfits on democratic and secular ideals, near the BJP office in the state capital.

TUR conveners Angela Ryngad and Tarun said the beef party is being held to oppose BJP for their ideals which seeks to uproot the ideals that unite the country.

The TUR asked its members to bring to the party ideas, banners, posters and beef burgers.
"The beef party is not just eating beef burgers or sharing beef soups but a platform where we will have songs, ideas, banners, posters against the party, its ideals and its leader Amit Shah," they said.

Meanwhile security have been tightened in the city in the wake of a 12-hour bandh called by the proscribed militant outfit, the Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council (HNLC), in protest against alleged atrocities perpetrated by the Sangh Parivar on minorities.

East Khasi Hills district SP M Kharkrang said additional security personnel will be deployed in and around sensitive areas during Shah’s visit.

The outfit in a release said the BJP-led NDA government’s plan to ban cow slaughter will also snatch employment from thousands of families in the Hynniewtrep (Khasi and Jaintia Hills region).

Shah, who visited Mizoram, Nagaland and Manipur during his week-long tour, is scheduled to arrive here from Sikkim tomorrow for a day-long visit where he will meet regional political party leaders, church leaders and BJP workers.

Eating beef not a fundamental right: Maha govt tells HC

It is not a fundamental right of a citizen to eat beef and the state legislation can regulate consumption of flesh of animals, the Maharashtra government today told the Bombay High Court.

Advocate General Sunil Manohar made this submission while opposing a bunch of petitions challenging the ban on slaughter of cows, bulls and bullocks, and consumption and possession of their meat, introduced under the Maharashtra Animal Preservation (Amendment) Act.

He said that the petitioners’ contention that a person can eat anything he wishes to other than human flesh cannot be accepted.

"It is not a fundamental right of a citizen to eat beef.It cannot be said that the government cannot take away these rights. The state legislation can regulate consumption of flesh of any animal the source of which is reprehensible. Under the Animal Protection Act, there is a prohibition on consumption of wild boar, deer and other animals," Manohar argued.

The petitions have challenged only sections 5 (d) and 9 (a) of the Act, which prohibit possession and consumption of meat of cow, bulls and bullocks even if the animals have been slaughtered outside Maharashtra. According to the petitions, this puts a ban on import of meat.

Senior counsel Aspi Chinoy, appearing for one of the petitioners, had argued that such a ban on consumption was violative of the fundamental right of a person to have his choice of food.

The state government in an affidavit filed yesterday, however, refuted this contention.

The Advocate General said there are several other food items that provide the same nutrition as that of beef.

He further argued that if section 5 (d), which prohibits possession and consumption of beef, is struck down, then the Act would remain only on paper and it would frustrate the purpose and its object which is to protect cow progeny.

A division bench of justices V M Kanade and M S Sonak will continue hearing the arguments tomorrow.