Beef fest puts OU on edge

Students plan to make it big; Gowrakshana Samiti tries to halt

Hyderabad: Tension is brewing in Osmania University over the controversial beef festival slated to be held on December 10 by the Democratic Cultural Forum (DCF).

While the DCF representing 15 students’ organisations has intensified the campaign to make the beef festival a success, the Gowrakshna Samiti leaders are strongly opposing it. The right wing leaders argue that consuming beef was against the Hinduism.

Meanwhile, the festival forum has invited around 5000 members from academia and students though social media and also micro-blogging sites. The DCF had sent invitations to the political leaders like AIMIM president and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi, Congress senior leader Mohd Ali Shabbir and some leaders from left-wing parties to attend the festival.

The forum representatives said the festival was announced to oppose the culture of marginalisation and victimisation of Dalit- Bahujan- Minorities in the country for who beef is a culinary choice.

Strongly opposing the beef festival, BJP MLA from Goshamahal Assembly constituency in Hyderabad Raja Singh said that they would not allow the festival to be held. “We are ready to get killed over cow slaughter. We have every right to protect the cow which is treated as holy animal in Hindu religion,” he said.

Stating that the beef festival is organised only to rake up a political issue for vote bank politics, Raja Singh said that it was a political conspiracy by so-called secular parties.

A delegation led by Hindu Janajagruti Samiti called on Osmania University officiating Vice-Chancellor Rajeev Ranjan and urged him not to allow the festival slated for December 10.

In 2012, violence erupted on OU campus when a beef festival was conducted by the Dalit forums. Several students were injured in stone-pelting and vehicles were set ablaze on the campus. Cases were booked against both organisers and protestors for resorting to violence.