New Delhi: Nand Kishor Gurjar, a Bharatiya Janata Party MLA from Loni in Ghaziabad, was seen in a video that has begun to be circulated online, saying that roosters will not be sold in the constituency.
'लोनी में मुर्गा नहीं बिकेगा, जाओ दिल्ली में बेचो,भाग जाओ वरना जमानत भी नहीं होगी'
BJP विधायक नंद किशोर गुर्जर ने दुकानों को जबरन बंद करवाया #Ghaziabad #UttarPradesh pic.twitter.com/LJ6E9H792X
— News24 (@news24tvchannel) December 27, 2021
Gurjar, according to a News18 report, reached the Loni border on Monday, December 27. Once there, he allegedly threatened shop owners selling poultry that he will not allow roosters to be sold in Loni.
“From the video it appears as if no laws or regulations matter when it comes to Nandkishor Gurjar,” the report noted.
In the video, Gurjar can be heard saying, “Listen, stop all this and run away or you will go to jail. Won’t get bail at any price.” The MLA appears to be talking to a man who owns one of the shops.
“Lift all this ‘illegal’ work from here, let me not see them tomorrow onwards. Go to Delhi and sell them. No chicken will be sold in Loni,” he says in Hindi.
It is unclear why Gurjar specified roosters and if he meant chickens.
After ordering the shop owner to close the shop down, he appears to ask people off camera if they “don’t get the bad smell” from the shop. It is unclear what the answer is.
The crackdown on meat sellers and poultry shop owners has intensified among Hindutva groups and BJP leaders. Many such shops are owned by Muslim people.
Videos showing members of rightwing Hindutva outfits mobilising outside meat shops to shut them down during the Navratri period emerged in large numbers from several north Indian cities during the festive season.
Earlier this year, the Municipal Corporation of Gurgaon (MCG) announced that it would close down meat shops every Tuesday, as the law governing them prescribes that they be closed once a week,