Tuesday March 27 8:35 AM ET
Non-Vegetarians Beef Over Town's Meat Sale Ban NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The sale
of meat has been banned in a northern Indian town to encourage vegetarianism
among its 150,000 inhabitants, a local official said on Tuesday.``The
municipal corporation imposed a ban on selling meat in the town to promote
vegetarianism among the masses and spirituality,'' Khuban Devi, chairwoman of
the Municipal Corporation of Palwal, told Reuters by phone.``All the meat
shops in the town are closed.''Meat traders in Palwal, about 70 km (45 miles)
south of New Delhi, have reacted angrily to the ban and have filed a petition
in the local court to quash it.``The ban is completely wrong and false. You
cannot take away the employment of hundreds of people just like that,''
Suresh Chutani, a local councilor and a representative of the town's hotel
federation, told Reuters.Many people in predominantly Hindu India are
vegetarians, and Hindu groups often protest against the sale of meat and the
slaughter of animals for consumption.