JAIPUR: A large crowd gathered at Shaheed Smarak on Tuesday to protest against the closure of hotel Hayat Rabbani at Station Road late on Sunday on the basis of rumours that the hotel was serving beef."We will not allow the land of Gandhi to become the land of Godse," speakers said. Harkesh Bugalia, a leader of workers, said, "This is part of a deliberate strategy to break the backs of workers, farmers, adivasis and Muslims. We must stand together to resist this assault on our livelihoods."Late Sunday, Kamal Didi (who wears the robes of a sadhvi and signs her name with the suffix "Didi"), leader of the Rashtirya Mahil Gau Rakshak Mandal, led a mob seeking the closure of the hotel because, they alleged, beef waste was being fed to stray cows in the vicinity.Naeem Rabbani, the owner of the hotel, told TOI, "I later pleaded with mayor Ashok Lahoti to allow us to reopen the hotel. He says the meat will be examined and a decision taken in due course."Kavita Srivastava of People's Union for Civil Liberties, who received a phone call late on Sunday from frightened relatives of the hotel owner, said, "The cow protectors always have media people close at hand. Policemen and media were present at the protest site on Sunday. About 100 people had gathered outside the hotel, raising slogans of "Jai Shri Ram!'"Srivastava said 18-year-old Qasim, a cleaner at the hotel, had arrived at the garbage dump near the hotel to dispose of food waste at the time that Kamal Didi was trying to round up a stray cow. Seeing him, the woman alleged that the youth was polluting the stray cows in the area by feeding them "beef". In no time, a crowd gathered.Police were called in and two employees of the hotel, including Qasim, were taken to the local Sindhi Camp police station. An FIR was lodged and the two were charged with CrPC Section 151 (arrest to prevent commission of a cognisable offence). Local TV reported late Sunday that the meat was "suspicious", appearing to be neither mutton nor chicken.Police could not immediately trace the hotel owner, Naeem Rabbani, so they went to the house of his brother-in-law, Abdul Rehman, who has nothing to do with the hotel, and took him down to the police station, too. Brochures on communal harmony were found at the hotel, printed by the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind. Police searched the Jamaat office, too, for the hotel owner.DCP (west) Ashok Gupta said, "Two people were arrested and later released on bail. Samples were sent for forensic examination to test if the suspicion that beef was being served was true. Prima facie, it does not appear there was any violation of the law."Asked if it was correct for the hotel to be sealed on mere suspicion, he said, "The Nagar Nigam sealed the hotel, not the police." Mayor Ashok Lahoti and Kamal Didi could not be contacted on the phone.Srivastava said, "This is a hotel that has been winning awards for good service regularly from the hoteliers' association." Protesters have demanded action against police personnel who seemed to be working hand-in-glove with cow vigilantes.This is not the first such case in Rajasthan. Even before the lynching of Mohammad Akhlaq in Dadri, UP, in September 2015, Abdul Ghaffar Qureshi, 60, was killed in Birloka, in Khimsar tehsil of Nagaur district, on May 30 that year after rumours spread that he had killed 200 cows for a feast. Pictures of carcasses were spread on social media. Young men gathered in the thousands in the fields of Kumhari village, which the contractor of the municipality had taken on rent for the disposal of animal carcasses. Qureshi, who had nothing to do with the animals, had been beaten to death with iron rods even as some Hindu neighbours attempted to rescue him.

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