Days after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government in Uttar Pradesh banned the domestic sale of food products with halal certification, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said that there’s no such decision taken yet by the Centre.
“There’s no decision to put a ban on halal by the Union government yet,” India Today quoted Shah as saying in Hyderabad, where he has arrived to campaign for the upcoming Assembly elections in Telangana.
Earlier, the Uttar Pradesh government on November 18 issued an order, that banned the production, storage, distribution and sale of food products with halal certification with immediate effect while exempting products manufactured for export.
In a statement, the state government alleged that the “malicious attempts” to discourage the use of products lacking a halal certificate not only seek “unfair financial benefits” but also form part of a “pre-planned strategy to sow class hatred, create divisions in society, and weaken the country” by “anti-national elements”.
Also Read: UP bans halal-certified products: What are they and what’s the controversy?
A week following the UP government’s order, the state’s food safety and drug administration has seized 2,500 kg of halal-certified products in a bid to enforce the ban, The Hindu reported. The food safety department has investigated 482 establishments, spread across 97 locations across the state, the report added.
The Opposition has condemned the Yogi Adityanath-led government for issuing the ban order. “The Yogi government is preoccupied with dividing people, to create differences within them,” Congress’ Uttar Pradesh unit chief Ajay Rai said.
Ameeq Jamai, a spokesperson of the Samajwadi Party, said the decision could impact the country’s revenues. “India is the biggest meat exporter to the world and most of this export is to Muslim countries. This export is of around ₹1.25 lakh crore. Muslim countries only want halal certified meat and such certificates are issued by religious bodies. Out of the top 20 meat exporters, 18 are non-Muslims. If halal certification is banned, it will cause revenue loss to the country,” Hindustan Times quoted him as saying.
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Updated: 25 Nov 2023, 06:24 PM IST