The Uttar Pradesh government has ordered the closure of all slaughterhouses and meat shops in the state on Saturday to commemorate the birth anniversary of spiritual leader Sadhu TL Vaswadi, The Hindu reported.

The Adityanath administration declared November 25 as “no non-veg day”, according to an official statement by Dharmendra Pratap Singh, special secretary in the Uttar Pradesh government.

The statement asked the authorities to make sure that the order is followed strictly across the state.

This comes days after the Uttar Pradesh government banned the sale, production, storage and distribution of food items with halal certification.

Halal food is that which is permissible according to Islamic law. Several countries have legal mechanisms to certify halal food, while in several others, private bodies offer halal certification to companies.

The state government claimed that attempts to discourage the use of products without halal certificates lead to “unfair financial benefits” and also form part of a strategy to “sow class hatred, create divisions in society, and weaken the country” by “anti-national elements”.

The state’s Food and Safety Department on Thursday said it has seized 2,275 kg of halal-certified products from 38 districts and inspected 482 business establishments since the ban the came into force.

The ban excludes food products manufactured for export. “It was found that some organisations that weren’t equipped to issue halal certificates were doing so,” said Anita Singh, Uttar Pradesh Food Safety and Drug Administration Commissioner. “The certificates were being given to all kinds of products like edible oil, mint, rice, and bakery products. We found this to be against the rules, and hence, the ban was imposed.”

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