WSN Network
CHANDIGARH:
In a scathing expose and a revelation that will shock ordinary
Sikhs, the Sikh organisations and anyone connected with
sensitivities involved in the domain of religion, scores of hotels,
restaurants and eateries in India have been found to be serving
halal meat and poultry to patrons without informing them about the
fact.
Sections of the
Indian media have brought to the forefront how five star hotels and
mid-level restaurants have admitted that they have been serving
halal meat all these years as few ask before digging into the food
at an eatery about the way in which chicken or mutton served there
was slaughtered.
Hotels and
restaurants are also aware that customers don’t always try to know
if the non-vegetarian food there is of the halal or jhatka variety.
While this may
be a non-issue for those who may proudly call themselves “liberal
minded”, for people who are stricter about their religious beliefs,
the distinction is a matter of faith and its violation amounts to
sacrilege.
The Times of
India in Chandigarh quoted a Sikh girl who asked the staff at a
Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) outlet about the variety of
non-vegetarian food there. She was shocked to hear that it was
halal. She said, “I don’t want a ban on halal. But why don?t they
tell customers about what they are serving?”
An official
spokesperson at KFC admitted, “Yes, we serve halal because that is
our global mandate.”
But KFC is not
the only joint serving halal. Hotels like Taj also do the same. “The
slaughtering technique of our mutton and chicken is mechanized and
we source it from Godrej. This poultry and mutton is halal since the
machines are only equipped to slaughter in that manner,” said the
hotel’s general manager, Anil Malhotra.
A Godrej
spokesperson concurred with his statement.
General manager
(tourism) of Chandigarh Industrial and Tourism Development
Corporation (CITCO), A K Malhotra, said, “We serve jhatka meet at
our hotels as more than 95% clients prefer that in this part of the
country. In other parts also, the population of halal consumers is
in the minority. At CITCO eateries and hotels, halal is only
prepared on demand.”
The staff at
McDonald’s and Republic of Chicken took the middle path by saying
their supply of non-vegetarian foodstuffs came from a mechanized
plant and that was what they told their clients if they asked.
KFC officials
stated that none of the eating joints told customers about the
variety of meat they served.
However, the
Sikh girl maintained, “It is usually taken for granted the
non-vegetarian food served here would be jhatka since majority of
people here are either Sikh or Hindu, whose religion prohibits them
from eating halal, which is called kuttha in Sikhism.”
Punjab and
Haryana High Court lawyer Ranjan Lakhanpal stated it was illegal to
feed people food banned in their religion. “They should advertise
the kind of non-vegetarian food served there,” he added.
