You're free to take any meat other than beef: CM Devendra Fadnavis

It's official. The government has no plans to extend the ban on consumption of beef to other meat as well.

Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis made it clear on Tuesday. He was reacting to what advocate general Sunil Manohar told the Bombay high court on Monday.

Manohar's statement that the state may extend the ban on beef consumption to other meat as well had created a flutter in the state.

"This is just the beginning. We may consider banning the slaughter of other animals, too," Manohar said on Monday.

On Tuesday, this is what Fadnavis said: "I spoke with the advocate general and he told me that he had not made any such statement. We never wanted to ban goat meat eating and there is no provision in law as well."
Though meat eaters were relieved, the Mumbai Beef Association was not.

"Fadnavis' clarification does not hold any truth. He is basically misguiding people," charged association president Haji Mohammed Ali.

The attorney general made the statement in response to a question by a division bench as to why the government, under the Maharashtra Animal Preservation (Amendment) Act, has banned the slaughter, possession and consumption of cows, bulls and bullocks and not other animals.

Eknath Khadse, animal husbandry minister, confirmed to dna that the government has imposed a ban only on the slaughter of cow, oxen and bullocks.