Now, NC spokesman to host beef party to ‘assert free will’

National Conference spokesman Junaid Mattu said on Tuesday that he would host a beef party. He said it would be to assert his “rights and free will”.

Mattu clarified that he would host the beef party and not his party. “Was never a big beef eater, nor am I overly religious or moralistic. But now I will host a beef party just to assert my rights and free will,” Mattu wrote on social networking site Twitter.

He said hosting the beef party was his attempt “as an individual protecting his rights”.

If Mattu goes ahead with hosting the beef party, it will be a second such event in the region by a mainstream politician and may further exacerbate the volatile situation in the state.

Earlier this month, Independent legislator Engineer Rashid, who was attacked with ink yesterday in New Delhi, had hosted a beef party at the MLAs Hostel in the city here which had led to a brawl in the Legislative Assembly with angry BJP legislators.

The state has witnessed a spell of turmoil following last month’s High Court directive to the administration to implement a law banning the sale of beef and slaughter of bovines.

The court, however, later revoked its earlier order and asked the state government to “consider” a review of laws and take decisions within the Constitutional framework to ensure that no inter-religious conflict arises

The beef controversy has sharpened the communal divide in the state and caused a death also.

A trucker from south Kashmir’s Anantnag district received severeburn injuries after a group of men hurled a petrol bomb on his truck in Udhampur district following rumours of bovine slaughter in the area. The trucker succumbed to his injuries this week, triggering a fresh wave of protests in the region.