Members of the Sikh community in the northern British city of Bradford have come out against a halal meat plant being planned at a site next to a prominent gurdwara.
The city's leading meat retailer Pakeezah is planning to convert the site on Percival Street, once a car repair workshop, into a modern wholesale meat plant.
But since the site is close to the Guru Gobind Singh Gurdwara building, local Sikhs are fiercely opposing the plant saying that meat odour would waft into the religious building, The Telegraph and Argus reported. ‘Many of our people are strict vegetarians and the meat processing unit being so near to the temple is disrespectful and insensitive,’ Kuldip Bharj, secretary of the Board of Bradford Gurdwaras, was quoted as saying. She, however, clarified that although Sikhs do not eat halal meat, they do not condemn it as repugnant because ‘we do respect other religions’.
‘It is really that the smell of meat is very offensive for people who don’t eat it,’ Bharj said. She also said that there were fears that beef might be processed at the plant. ‘The cow is viewed as a sacred animal and beef is prohibited in Sikhism as it is in Hinduism,’ she said.
The proposal for the plant is being recommended for approval at an area planning panel meeting on 13 August. ‘A butchery plant should be on an industrial estate rather than next to a place of worship and community centre where people will be exposed to the disgraceful smell and noise,’ the gurdwara's president said.
The city's leading meat retailer Pakeezah is planning to convert the site on Percival Street, once a car repair workshop, into a modern wholesale meat plant.
But since the site is close to the Guru Gobind Singh Gurdwara building, local Sikhs are fiercely opposing the plant saying that meat odour would waft into the religious building, The Telegraph and Argus reported. ‘Many of our people are strict vegetarians and the meat processing unit being so near to the temple is disrespectful and insensitive,’ Kuldip Bharj, secretary of the Board of Bradford Gurdwaras, was quoted as saying. She, however, clarified that although Sikhs do not eat halal meat, they do not condemn it as repugnant because ‘we do respect other religions’.
‘It is really that the smell of meat is very offensive for people who don’t eat it,’ Bharj said. She also said that there were fears that beef might be processed at the plant. ‘The cow is viewed as a sacred animal and beef is prohibited in Sikhism as it is in Hinduism,’ she said.
The proposal for the plant is being recommended for approval at an area planning panel meeting on 13 August. ‘A butchery plant should be on an industrial estate rather than next to a place of worship and community centre where people will be exposed to the disgraceful smell and noise,’ the gurdwara's president said.