Earlier today, Senior BJP Leader from Kerala K Surendran posted a photo of slaughtered cows on his official Facebook Page. In his post, he claimed that cattle was being slaughtered in public places in Kerala. The picture that he posted shows 5-6 dead cows on a sidewalk in a market place. Some people can be seen in the background and the shutters of all the shops are pulled down. Following is the complete text of Mr K Surendran’s post.
Rough Translation: The State Government should immediately take steps to stop the beef festivals being organised across the state by youth organisations of the left and the congress and some terrorist organisations. The beef being distributed in these festivals are not being bought from legal meat shops. In many places, the festivals are being conducted by illegal slaughtering of the cattle in public. Many of these events are aimed at inciting tension. Anti-social elements and terrorists are making use of this situation. Lakhs of devotees are pained because the Dewaswom Minister (who is in charge of temples) himself was seen publicly consuming beef. Ministers and responsible social workers should stay away from such horrific protest movements. Everyone is free to hold protests. But, it is better that people desist from participating in protests which will cause ill-will among the public. We request everyone connected with this not to drag the nationalistic organisations into countering this.
Original text: സംസ്ഥാനത്ത് വിവിധ പ്രദേശങ്ങളിൽ ഇടതുവലതു യുവജനസംഘടനകളും മതതീവ്രവാദസംഘടനകളും നടത്തുന്ന ബീഫ് മേളകൾ തടയാൻ സംസ്ഥാനസർക്കാർ അടിയന്തിര നടപടി സ്വീകരിക്കണം. ബീഫ് മേളകളിൽ വിതരണം ചെയ്യുന്ന മാംസം പലതും അംഗീകൃത ഇറച്ചിക്കടകളിൽ നിന്ന് വാങ്ങുന്നതല്ല. പലയിടത്തും പൊതുസ്ഥലത്ത് നിയമം ലംഘിച്ച് കശാപ്പു നടത്തിയാണ് മേളകൾ നടത്തുന്നത്. ജനങ്ങളിൽ ഭീതിയുളവാക്കുന്നതും അരോചകമായ നിലയിലുമാണ് കാര്യങ്ങൾ പോകുന്നത്. പ്രകോപനപരമാണ് പല പരിപാടികളും. സാമൂഹ്യവിരുദ്ധരും തീവ്രവാദികളും അവസരം മുതലെടുക്കുന്നു. ദേവസ്വം വകുപ്പ് മന്ത്രി തന്നെ പരസ്യമായി ഗോമാംസം ഭക്ഷിക്കുന്നത് ലക്ഷക്കണക്കിന് വിശ്വാസികളെ വേദനിപ്പിച്ചിരിക്കുന്നു. മന്ത്രിമാരും ഉത്തരവാദപ്പെട്ട പൊതുപ്രവർത്തകരും ഇത്തരം ഭീഭൽസമായ സമരപരിപാടികളിൽ നിന്ന് വിട്ടുനിൽക്കണം. പ്രചാരണവും സമരപരിപാടികളും ആർക്കുമാവാം. എന്നാൽ ജനങ്ങളിൽ അവമതിപ്പുളവാക്കുന്ന ആഭാസസമരങ്ങളിൽ നിന്ന് ഉത്തരവാദപ്പെട്ടവർ പിന്മാറുന്നതാണ് എല്ലാവർക്കും നല്ലത്. തിരിച്ചുള്ള പ്രകോപനങ്ങളിലേക്ക് ദേശീയപ്രസ്ഥാനങ്ങളെ മനപ്പൂർവം വലിച്ചിഴക്കരുതെന്ന് ബന്ധപ്പെട്ട എല്ലാവരോടും അഭ്യർത്ഥിക്കുന്നു.
The issue of public slaughter became big after members of Kerala Youth Congress slaughtered a cow publicly to protest against the new beef ban rules by the Union Govt. This act was condemned by many including the Vice President of Congress himself.
One can agree with Mr K Surendran in principle that animals shouldn’t be slaughtered publicly and the required safety norms should always be followed. However, in the present case, the photo used by Mr K Surendran is an age old photo and has got nothing to do with the wide-spread protests in Kerala against the Union Govt’s diktat. This photo has been used with misleading captions many times over in the past few years. For eg, one Subhasis Chakravarty posted this photo on 28 Oct 2011 on the Google Plus platform with the caption “COW slaughter in UP under the license of PRINCESS MAYAWATI , this way , in the open“.
A higher resolution picture of the dead cows can be seen here. As the commentator Krish Datta points out in the above image, the language on the boards above the shops is Bengali. With all the shutters down, it would seem like the shops are shut for a festival. These two facts combined would indicate that these could be Eid celebrations either in West Bengal or Bangladesh. Had cows been slaughtered in such a fashion in West Bengal, it surely would have been covered in main stream media. However, no such news report was found in main stream media about such an incident in West Bengal. Most likely, this image is from Bangladesh. This image has been in circulation since before 2009 as can be seen in this WordPress blog.
All the above facts would prove beyond doubt that Mr K Surendran was in fact circulating an extremely old picture which is completely unrelated to the protests happening in Kerala. While BJP cadre has been caught time and again circulating such misleading pictures, at least senior BJP leaders should do the due diligence and avoid spreading rumours via their social media account which have a sizeable following.
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