Ahead of Eid, animal sacrifice in housing societies becomes contentious

The existing law mandates that anyone wanting to sacrifice an animal in a public other than the designated spots needs permission from the authorities.

In a special hearing on Wednesday late evening, the Bombay High Court instructed the Mumbai police and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to ensure there was no sacrificing of animals in housing societies which did not have the municipal permission to do so.

Ahead of Eid, animal sacrifice in housing societies becomes contentious

The court was hearing a challenge against animal slaughter in a south Mumbai society ahead of Eid-ul-Adha on Thursday. The petition was filed by a certain Haresh Jain and other society members of Nathani Heights at Lamington Road after some society members brought animals into the society premises.

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In the far north of the city however, in the suburb of Mira Road, members of JP Infra society took matters in their hands when a couple got a few sacrificial goats into the society. The neighbours assumed that they were going to sacrifice the goats inside the building premises and began protesting which then escalated to manhandling and verbal abuse.

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Mohsin Shaikh and his wife Yasmin who have been living in Mira Road’s JP Infra society for 5 years said this was the first time they had faced such trouble during Eid. “Previously the builder would give us space to tether our goats which we would then sacrifice at the Kashmira slaughter house on Eid day,” said Yasmin. “However, this year as there was some construction work going on in the society the builder took a meeting of the Muslim residents of the society and told them to seek the managing committee’s permission for space. They refused to meet us so we wrote them an email saying we would have no option but to get the goats into our flats and then take them to the slaughter house on Eid day,” said Yasmin.

But after they got the goats into their apartment late on Tuesday night, around 200 society members gathered the following morning and demanded that they get rid of the goats from the society. Some members began chanting the Hanuman Chalisa and also raising slogans of Jai Shri Ram. The verbal spat then turned violent with some people allegedly manhandling them. That was when Mohsin Shaikh called up the police emergency number and informed them about the threats being made to them. The local police have since filed an FIR against 11 society members for molestation, assault and criminal intimidation.

The existing law mandates that anyone wanting to sacrifice an animal in a public other than the designated spots needs permission from the local civic authorities. In the Lamington Road society case the advocate for the petitioners, Subhash Jha, said he was constrained to approach the High Court at the nth hour after the police failed to address their apprehensions of a possible animal slaughter in their society premises.

His petition also sought a stay on slaughtering of animals in the said society during the pendency of the hearing.

On the same day, another bench of the Bombay HC dealt with an application filed by the Hajrat Peer Malik Rehan Dargah Trust which sought permission to carry out slaughtering of sacrificial animals near Vishalgad Fort on Bakri Eid.

The application filed by advocate Madhavi Ayyappan sought permission from the division bench of justices Gautam Patel and Neela Gokhale which was hearing the original petition filed by the Trust against an order of the local authorities prohibiting slaughtering of animals at the Vishalgad Fort and its vicinity.

While expressing its displeasure at the last-minute application for permission the

bench directed the local authorities to decide the application on merit and added, “We make it clear that we are not ourselves directing that the permission is to be granted and we are not granting that permission ourselves. We are only directing that the application made by the petitioner is to be considered urgently by the authorities in question.”