Muslims can stay in India but must give up eating beef : Haryana CM KL Khattar

His comment came at a time when the clamour against intolerance and attack on the country's diversity was soaring high with the critics and the BJP-led government at the centre crossing swords in a war of words.

"Muslim rahein, magar is desh mein beef khaana chhodna hi hoga unko. Yahan ki manyata hai gau (Muslims can stay, but in this country they will have to give up eating beef. The cow is an article of faith here)," is what  Khattar said in an interview to the Indian Express newspaper.

The 61-year-old, who took charge of the BJP's first government in Haryana a year ago, is a veteran member of the party's ideological mentor Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

He described the Dadri killing as the "result of a misunderstanding" in which both sides had been wrong. "It should not have happened...from both sides," he said.

On September 28 in Uttar Pradesh's Dadri, Mohammad Akhlaq, a 52-year-old man was  dragged out of his home by a mob and lynched after  a public announcement was made from a temple that a calf had been killed.

Khattar alleged that Akhlaq had made a "halki tippani (loose comment)" about the cow which hurt the sentiment of those who attacked him. He said the mob acted like a man would "after seeing his mother being killed or his sister getting molested."

Replying a question whether stopping people from eating food of their choice violates a constitutional right, the Chief Minister said while India is democratic, there are boundaries.

"Freedom of one person is only to the extent that it is not hurting another person. Eating beef hurts the sentiments of another community, even constitutionally you cannot do this." he said.
"They can be Muslim even if they stop eating beef, can't they? It is written nowhere that Muslims have to eat beef, or Christians have to eat beef," the CM added.

Khattar's government enacted a law in March that prescribes 10 years in jail for killing cows and five years for beef-eating.