GAI pe charcha-II - Why no trucker will ferry meat or hide now

Indar Balmiki from Agra's Kagaraul village recently lost his job of slaughtering and flaying buffaloes when his employer fired him. He and his fellow workers were sacked as vigilantism increased after the Dadri incident.
Indar is among lakhs of slaughterhouse and tannery workers across the country who find themselves at a dead end. Cow slaughter is illegal in most states.But flaying fallen (dead) cattle is legal. People largely from the underprivileged sec tions and minorities earn their livelihood from slaughtering and flaying cattle. At ground level, there's a scare everywhere -not just among butchers, also among those engaged in other segments of the industry, among transporters too.
Right-wing groups sworn to cow protection intercept trucks carrying cattle and meat. “Truckers are wary even to transport goat and sheep meat as vigilante groups claim goat meat as cow meat to spark communal trouble,“ says Fazle Karim Qureshi, Jaipur unit vice-president of All India Jammatul Quresh, a butchers' organisation.
Slaughterhouse owners say the scare has reached such a point that even procuring buf faloes, exempt from the slaughter ban, is tougher. “The meat export industry employs lakhs of people. The cow is holy for Hindus, not buffaloes. Meat exporters earn large revenues for the country. We are the top exporter (largely of buff meat) in the world. What we get in return is the possibility of a ban," says Meerut's Mohammed Fardeen, owner of AlArham Meat Exports.
Former Agra Cantt MLA Zulfikar Ahmed, who owns a licenced slaughterhouse, says vigilante groups have become “extraordinarily active". Business is down by 25% in the past year and a half. “They stop trucks, get my labourers booked for cruelty against animals. I run a government (licenced) slaughterhouse, still I am threatened," he says.
The leather industry too is equally hit. Gonda trader Shakeel Ahmed who supplies raw hides to Kanpur tanneries says he finds the going difficult.“Transporters refuse bookings to carry raw hides to Kanpur," he says.
Narayan Chandbodale, Beed district general secretary of Rashtriya Charmakar Mahasangh, estimates that about 70,000 people from Marathwada alone, who earned their living from flaying dead cattle and leather craftsmanship, are jobless after the Devendra Fad navis government's beef ban kicked in. “Earlier we bought hide for Rs 1,500-Rs 2,000 per piece. After processing, we produced different kinds of material. The ban has hit the trade," Chandbodale says.
This is a double whammy for Dalits and butchers from the Muslim community. As Rauf Qureshi, president of Nashik beef Merchants' Association puts it: “Generations are involved in beef sale and related businesses. These people aren't educated. They don't have any alternative to support their livelihood."