Constitution allows a person to eat whatever he wants: Mehbooba Mufti

Jammu, Oct 28: Amid a raging controversy over beef consumption, PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti today said the Indian Constitution guarantees freedom to a person "to eat whatever he wants within the four walls of his house".

"(According to) the Constitution of India...a person has every right to eat whatever he wants within the four walls of his house without hurting the sentiments of others," Mehbooba told reporters on the sidelines of an event.

"It has become difficult to afford pulses, the inflation has risen so much...and here the course of discourse is what type of meat should people eat and what they shouldn't," she quipped.

While appreciating the secular ethos of the country in wake of the Dadri lynching, she said people who were returning their awards as a mark of protest against such incidents were Hindus.

"There are a handful of people who take the law in their hands, these people indulge in rioting. The number of people who don't like these things is much more. And those who have returned their awards recently, they are educated people and they are not Muslims but Hindus," Mehbooba said.

The PDP chief said "those who raised voice against rioting and hooliganism were also Hindus. I am hopeful that the Constitution of this country will take care of everything."

She said miscreants shouldn't be allowed to take the law in their own hands and must be dealt with strictly, irrespective of their political and religious affiliations.

PTI