On Siddaramaiah’s home turf, Mysuru police detain two for bringing beef to beef fest

Police have detained two people for bringing a beef dish to the beef festival organized in Mysuru on Sunday.

The Dalit Welfare Trust had organised a beef festival at Town Hall on Sunday protesting the attacks on Dalits and Muslims, including the Chikmgalur incident in Karnataka and the one in Una, Gujarat. They had said that they would have a dish made of cow-meat, and not that of any other bovine.

Mysuru Police detained two people who came to Town Hall in an autorickshaw. They were picked up as soon as they alighted.

Dalit Welfare Trust chief Shantaraju, one of the organisers told The News Minute that they would be holding the protest, and would consume beef chops as a symbolic protest. He said that the police had not given permission for the protest.

Read: Mysuru group to hold beef festival to protest attacks against Dalits, Muslims

“Let us see what happens,” he had said ahead of the start of the festival.

Mysuru is incidentally, the home constituency of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, who has had the backing of the progressive intelligentsia of the state.

In the wake of the Dadri lynching, Siddaramaiah had said in October “I have not eaten go-maamsa (cow-meat) until today, (but) who are you to ask me whether I have or not?”

He was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a programme organised by the Bengaluru unit of the Youth Congress.