With meat off the menu, AMU forced to go vegetarian

Not long after the Yogi Adityanath led BJP government’s move to abolish illegal slaughterhouses in Uttar Pradesh, meat went off the menu of Aligarh Muslim University.

The students of the varsity have written a letter to the Vice Chancellor Zameer Uddin Shah seeking his intervention. The varsity boasts of nineteen dining halls where more than 15,000 students dine daily. With a Muslim population of around 50 per cent, the university holds students from more than 21 different countries, some of them being purely non-vegetarian.

The crackdown of meat is also affecting the dining fee of the students. The varsity claims to be the cheapest among others by providing three meals a day for a month, for just Rs 1000.

Mohammad Asif, Senior Food Monitor of one of the halls told Newslaundry, “Earlier we used to serve at least one non-veg meal daily. It was a cheap option for us. In our hall, 28-30 kg meat was cooked daily and we got it for some 3300 rupees. Any alternative apart from it costs us no less than 10,000.”

With meat completely out of market, there’s a hike in vegetable prices as well, claimed another student.

The Vice Chancellor in response has said, “There is no means to provide 500 kg meat daily. Nothing can be done for now”.

While the whole issue has taken a political turn after MIM chief and Hyderabad MP, Asaduddin Owaisi wrote a tweet, “15000 students in Aligarh Muslim University have not been served meat (buffalo) since 26 March and BJP says we are not targeting?”, Aligarh Muslim University Students’ Union have also made hard remarks over the issue.

“There’s so much politics in everything. It started from gaumaas (cow’s meat) and now has reached to this. Meat industry was the only business Muslims were dominating at local level and it is banned. Why doesn’t the government trying banning alcohol, are they afraid of Jats”, said AMUSU President Faizul Hasan.

“I can live without meat. But if the government is banning illegal slaughterhouses, it must ban other illegal businesses too. Sharaab, wo Vaishyavritti sab band ho”, Ayaz Ahmad, Senior Hall Monitor of a hall said advocating Faizul’s statement.