Ghaziabad Mayor Asha Sharma on Saturday directed owners to shut meat shops during the Navratri festival, ANI reported.
As per the directive, the ban will be in effect from April 2 to April 10 – when the nine-day Chaitra Navratri is celebrated in India.
“Raw meat cannot be sold in the vicinity of the temple,” Sharma said.
The order is issued in the district’s five zones, The Indian Express reported. “It has been directed that cleanliness be maintained in respective zones, in temples and to ensure meat shops remain closed,” the order said.
Local shopkeepers, however, questioned why the ban is not applicable to liquor sale.
“This is for the first time that meat shops are shut during Navratri in Ghaziabad”, an unidentified shopkeeper told ANI. “Liquor shops are opened and meat shops are asked to shut down. Our source of income has stopped.”
He said that meat shop owners will incur losses worth thousands of rupees due to the ban, ANI reported. “We have meat products worth lakhs kept in our shops,” he told the news agency.
Meanwhile, the mayor said that shutting meat shops during Navratri was a routine order.
“They [meat and liquor] can’t be equated with each other,” she added, ANI reported. “It is related to religious sentiments.”
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