Ahead of Eid, Mumbai civic body identifies 500 spaces for slaughter

Merchant submitted that owing to the large number of animals to be sacrificed, the designated places would be inadequate and would create traffic and chaos not only for the persons intending to do the slaughter but also the general public.

After the Bombay high court (HC) refused to permit slaughtering in homes and flats ahead of Bakri Eid, the civic body submitted that it has identified more than 500 common slaughtering centres in the city. It submitted that apart from the 58 non-vegetarian markets, it has permitted 360 meat shops with slaughter chambers to carry out the sacrifices of around 2.5 lakh animals. With this, it has also identified 100 community centres, public and private, to carry out the ritual in the three days of the festival.

After the Bombay high court (HC) refused to permit slaughtering in homes and flats ahead of Bakri Eid, the civic body submitted that it has identified more than 500 common slaughtering centres in the city. (Photo by Sonu Mehta/ Hindustan Times)

The court was hearing on three petitions filed by Muslim organisations through senior advocates Rizwan Merchant and Mobin Solkar seeking relaxation of the previous HC order which restrained the slaughter of goats and sheep in societies that were located within the radius of a kilometre of the non-vegetarian markets and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC)-designated spots to conduct the ritualistic slaughter.

Merchant submitted that owing to the large number of animals to be sacrificed, the designated places would be inadequate and would create traffic and chaos not only for the persons intending to do the slaughter but also the general public. He justified it saying that large number of vehicles transporting the animals to the designated spots would make movement impossible.

Merchant said that the community would cooperate with the BMC to ensure that the concerns of the court and the general well-being of the citizens were taken care of while carrying out the sacrifices. In light of these submissions, he prayed that the court relax its order for societies this year.

However, the division bench of justices SC Dharmadhikari and Gautam Patel was in no mood to relent and said that it’s personal experiences were suffice to refuse the prayers of the applicants. The bench added that it understood the problem but the solution was to be at the discretion of the BMC which could decide to allow societies that did not have permitted slaughter centres in the 1-km radius area to do the ritual. However, in such cases, a no-objection certificate (NOC) from the society would mandatory for such permissions.