UP bans sale of halal-certified products with immediate effect
Lucknow, Nov 18: The Uttar Pradesh government on Saturday banned the production, storage, distribution and sale of food products with halal certification with immediate effect while exempting products manufactured for export.
In a statement, the state government alleged "malicious attempts" to discourage the use of products lacking a halal certificate not only seek "unfair financial benefits" but also form part of a "pre-planned strategy to sow class hatred, create divisions in society, and weaken the country" by "anti-national elements".
Strict legal measures will be taken against any individual or firm engaged in the production, storage, distribution, buying, and selling of halal-certified medicines, medical devices, and cosmetics within Uttar Pradesh, the statement said.
"Unrestrained propaganda is being disseminated within a particular section of society to discourage the use of products lacking a halal certificate," the statement said. This harms the business interests of other communities, it added.
There are also fears that the "unfair advantage" is being passed onto "anti-social or anti-national elements", the government said.
However, products manufactured for export will not be subject to the restrictions, it said.
According to the statement, the UP government recently received information which indicated that products such as dairy items, sugar, bakery products, peppermint oil, salty ready-to-eat beverages, and edible oils are being labelled with a halal certification.
"Additionally, certain medicines, medical devices, and cosmetic products are reported to feature the halal certificate on their packaging or labelling," the statement said.
"However, there are no provisions for marking halal certification on labels in the government rules related to drugs, medical devices, and cosmetics, nor is there any mention of halal certification in the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940, and its related rules.
"Any direct or indirect mention of halal certification on the labels of medicines, medical devices, or cosmetics constitutes falsification under the said Act, making it a punishable offence," it said.
As per the Act and rules applicable to food items, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India has been given the right to determine the standards of food items, the statement said.
"Halal certification, operating as a parallel system, creates confusion regarding food quality, violating government rules in this regard," it added.
An FIR on the matter has also been also registered in Lucknow Commissionerate last Friday.
Entities such as Halal India Private Limited Chennai, Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind Halal Trust Delhi, Halal Council of India Mumbai, Jamiat Ulama Maharashtra, and others have exploited religious sentiments to boost sales by providing halal certificates to customers of a specific religion, the government said citing the FIR.
"Illegal businesses are being run for financial gain. The complainant has raised concerns over a potential large-scale conspiracy, indicating attempts to decrease the sales of products from companies lacking the halal certificate, which is illegal," the statement said.
In a statement, Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind Halal Trust termed the allegations as "baseless" and said it will take "necessary legal measures to counter such misinformation".
"We adhere to government regulations, as emphasised in the Ministry of Commerce & Industry notification, requiring all halal certification bodies to be registered by NABCB (National Accreditation Board for Certification Bodies under Quality Council of India), a milestone that Jamiat Ulama-I-Hind Halal Trust has achieved," it said.
"It is also a matter of choice of individuals and manufacturers preferring to certain certifications for their own satisfaction based upon the credentials which the certifying authorities enjoy. It saves a large number of consumers from using products which they do not want for a variety of reasons and ensures availability of need-based products in the market.
"Those who do not want to use such products are free not to use them," it further said.
The government claimed that through halal certification unfair advantage is being passed on to anti-social and anti-national elements.
"The complainant further alleges that, under the guise of religion, unrestrained propaganda is being disseminated within a particular section of society to discourage the use of products lacking a halal certificate," it added.
This, in turn, harms the business interests of other communities, the government said in its statement.
"Such a malicious attempt not only seeks unfair financial benefits by issuing halal certificates for items meant for common citizens but also forms part of a pre-planned strategy to sow class hatred, create divisions in society, and weaken the country," it said.
"Many individuals beyond the owners and managers of the implicated companies are believed to be part of this criminal conspiracy with potential links to anti-national activities," it added.
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Gurugram Police arrest BJP Yuva Morcha member for spreading fake murder story on social media
New Delhi: Gurugram Police have arrested BJP Yuva Morcha member Hariom Mishra, for allegedly spreading a fabricated and communally sensitive story on social media about the murder of a college student in Gurugram.
Mishra who is also known as Shaurya Mishra had shared a collage of four photographs on his X handle earlier this month. He claimed that a 24-year-old college student, identified as Nikita Agarwal, had been murdered by her classmate Arif Khan in Gurugram. In the post, he alleged that the woman was blackmailed, forced into prostitution, gangraped, and eventually killed. He also claimed that Arif dumped her body in a forest. The claims were presented as being based on police sources.
The post went viral and garnering over 1.5 lakh views, and was amplified by several right-wing social media handles across X, Facebook and Instagram. A verification of the claims revealed that no such incident had taken place in Gurugram. A search of credible news reports showed no record of any such murder. The police said this news would have inevitably attracted media attention if it were true.
On December 11, Gurugram Police publicly refuted the claims through their official X handle. They stated that the information which was being circulated was completely false. The police warned that legal action would be taken against those spreading misinformation. Despite the warning, Mishra neither deleted the post nor issued any clarification.
Police in Gurugram confirmed Mishra's arrest on December 16. The police said a FIR was filed after he continued to spread false information about the alleged murder of a Hindu woman by Muslim man. Police said Mishra, a resident of Uttar Pradesh's Kaushambi district, is now being investigated.
Gurugram Police spokesperson Sandeep Singh told The Print that the accused had deliberately misrepresented facts and used objectionable content to spread hatred along religious lines. “Such posts can create serious disturbances in society, and the police take these matters very seriously,” he said.
A reverse image search conducted by fact-checkers at Alt News, revealed that the photographs used in the viral post were unrelated to the claims, while two of the images were traced to a Pinterest account belonging to influencer Maulik Chopra and another image was sourced from an Instagram post by influencer Shivam Thakur featuring a woman named Deepanshi Rawat. The fourth image was found on an unrelated Instagram page. The images depicted different individuals and had no connection to any crime.
Police said they are also investigating Mishra’s motive behind sharing the false and provocative content.
