Force-Feeding Beef — Age-Old Modus Operandi For Islamic Conversion Continues Even Today

No matter how much the Communists and Islamists spread the propaganda that beef (meat of cow or cow progeny) is just another meat which citizens of India should be allowed to prepare and consume by choice, the fact remains that cow slaughter and consumption of beef have been manifestations of religious and racial hate against followers of 'Dharmic' faiths such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism.

As pointed out in this earlier piece by Swarajya, early Islamic invaders used cow slaughter as a weapon of denigration of Hindus and their faith such as, Mohammed bin Qasim, who asserted the superiority of Islam over polytheists by killing cows publicly and offering the meat to the murtis of deities, and Jehangir, who wrapped the corpse of Guru Anjan Dev with cow-skin as deliberate provocation.

Pakistan founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah famously said in the run up to Partition that Hindu and Muslim cultures and civilisations were poles apart and a glaring example of it was that while Hindus worshipped cows, Muslims ate them.

Seventy-five years after Partition, beef continues to be used by Islamist groups and fanatics in the Indian sub-continent as a tool of conversion, humiliation or subjugation of Hindus whenever they get a chance.

Besides them, other anti-Hindu groups or individuals slaughter cows and hold ‘beef parties’ as a show of opposition to “Hindu extremism“.

Several Hindu women who have filed cases against Muslim men of trapping them with false identity or bad intention in relationships for their conversion or sexual exploitation, have revealed they were forcibly fed beef (read here, hereand here).

They were made to eat beef either during conversion – a mandatory condition for marriage as per Islamic rituals (nikah) – or after marriage.

For instance, a woman from Uttar Pradesh, Lakshmi, told this correspondent that after she eloped with a man she knew only as “Tillu” (who turned out to be Mohammed Sohrab), she was told to eat beef by the cleric who had come for the nikah ceremony. 

Lakshmi said that she refused, saying she was Hindu by birth and had seen cow being worshipped in the house. The cleric, in turn, refused to participate in the nikah ceremony. Watch her statement here.

Islamic Dawah (conversion) groups are known to feed their prey with cow meat in order to ‘complete’ their conversion. This is a feature in Pakistan as well as India. 

In September, a Hindu man from a scheduled caste was circumcised and force-fed beef by an Islamic conversion group. The 26-year-old man, Shridhar Gangadhar, filed a case against the group saying he was converted through force.

The victim told the police that one Rehman began indoctrinating him into Islam in May, by taking him to mosques. Before forcible circumcision, he was asked to eat beef and beaten up when he refused. 

The latest such case has come to light only three days ago. On 2 January, a Dalit man filed a police case against a man named Khaleel Miyan, for feeding him and some fellow villagers beef through deceit and then forcing them to convert to Islam.

The FIR (number 3/2023) was filed at Barhi police station in Hazaribagh district of Jharkhand on 2 January. 

In his complaint, Manoj said that on 30 December, a liquor vendor named Khaleel Miyan, along with his friends, visited Manoj’s house. They had brought a cow with them and tied it outside the house. 

Khaleel told the residents that he was going to throw a feast for all villagers, with food as well as alcohol. More than two dozen people assembled for the feast. 

As promised, there was alcohol. For the main course, there was meat and rice. While eating, some villagers questioned what meat it was as the pieces were larger than usual. Khaleel replied that it was cow meat.

When villagers protested against it, Khaleel brandished the butcher’s knife he had used for slaughtering the cow, and threatened all with similar consequences. 

Khaleel told the villagers that now that they had eaten beef, they should become full Muslims. Residents should begin doing namaz and going to mosques, Khaleel told them. He also passed casteist slurs at them.

Villagers returned home in fear, but the next day, Manoj went to the police to file a case. Manoj and others showed the police the place where Khaleel had slaughtered the cow. Pieces of flesh and bones were still lying there. 

The complaint by Manoj concludes here, and can be read here.

This correspondent called up Barhi police station. The person who picked up the phone gave details of the FIR, but refused to identify himself saying he was a junior officer. He said that Khaleel had been arrested.

On Jharkhand police’s website, the status of the FIR is marked as ‘sensitive’. The page, however, gives details of the charges against Khaleel. 

He has been booked under IPC sections 341 (wrongful restraints), 323 (causing hurt), 429 (killing or maiming cattle), 153A (offence in any assembly engaged in religious activity), 295A (deliberately hurting sentiments), 298 (hate speech), 504 (insulting), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 34 (common intention), along with Section 121 of the Jharkhand Bovine Animal Prohibition of Slaughter Act, 2005 and Sections 31a and 3(1)s of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.

This case comes close on the heels of another similar incident in Jharkhand where a man, also from a scheduled caste, was force-fed beef by some Muslim youths. The victim, Chandan Ravidas, filed a police case against the men at Sahibganj district’s Radha Nagar police station.

Chandan told the police that on the night of 31 December, he went into the bushes to answer nature’s call when he found a familiar person named Mitthin Sheikh consuming food and liquor along with four friends. 

They offered him to join them, but went to to stuff beef into his mouth. When Chandan refused to, the groups beat him up badly.

Also Read: Cow Slaughter And Hindu Persecution In The Indian Subcontinent: A Short History