Daijiworld News Network - Mangalore
Exclusive by Gladson D'Almeida
Mangalore
May 22, 2006
The abattoir at Kudroli here has completed a full circle of controversies in just 2 months.
After Rajesh Shetty, who was supported by certain fundamental Hindu organizations in taking charge of the abattoir, had expressed his inability to run the slaughterhouse, after which MCC itself ran the show for a few days.
However, on Monday May 22 morning, MCC called for a new tender and as expected one K Hussein of Baikampady has won the tender for Rs 2.25 lac. With this the running of Kudroli abattoir has gone back in to the hands of the Muslim community. Ever since its inception, members of the Muslim community were running the abattoir by paying the annual tender money to MCC.
K Hussein of Baikampady (Pic Dayanand Kukkaje)
However, the problem started a couple of years ago when some of the fundamental Hindu organizations entered the scene complaining about the illegal slaughter of cattle in the abattoir and also about cattle-running. Though they made a bid to take charge of abattoir in the year in 2005, they had lost the tender by a narrow margin. But the following year Rajesh Shetty had won the tender for a whopping Rs 8 lac.
But from the day he took charge of the abattoir on April 1 nothing went in the right direction as expected by him and organizations backing him up. At first he said that he was receiving threatening calls. A couple of days later the vet appointed by MCC fell ill and there was no one to give clearance for the animals to be slaughtered. So the abattoir was shut down for 3 days.
But once it was opened, the Karnataka Pollution Control Board issued an order to close down the abattoir for violating norms. (It is quite surprising to know that it took so many years for the Karnataka Pollution Control Board to know that Kudroli abattoir was violating norms.)
Amidst all these developments, Rajesh came up with the disclosure that he was finding it difficult to run the abattoir and that he was backing out from his responsibility. He wrote a letter to MCC to cancel his tender. He also complained that he had incurred a loss of Rs 50,000 owing to the non-functioning of the abattoir and that the MCC should compensate him with the amount of loss incurred by him.
So the MCC cancelled his tender and called for a new tender. Accordingly, Hussain has won the tender for Rs 2.25 lac. It is quite surprising to know that tender money has dropped down by almost Rs 6 lac. If Rajesh had won the tender for Rs 8 lac, Hussain has now won it just for Rs 2.25 lac.
Now that the entire issue has taken a familiar twist, all are waiting to see as how the abattoir and related transactions would go on. People are also keenly watching the next move from the Hindu outfits who have often opposed cattle-slaughter. Now all eyes are on these organizations to observe whether they would continue their campaign against the cattle-slaughter or else shrug their shoulders to go in search of some other issues.
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