Meat vendor at centre of JNU row speaks: Has never happened before, but these students are like my family

Violence had broken out on April 10 between two groups, with Left student bodies alleging the ABVP had objected to cooking and serving of non-vegetarian food. However, the ABVP said it was because Left members objected to a havan on Ram Navami.

Ahmed’s family has been delivering meat to JNU for nearly three decades. Before him, his uncle delivered meat. According to JNU hostel menus, the delivery is usually made on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, and on an average 260-300 kg of meat is delivered in one day.

Ahmed, who has a shop in RK Puram’s Indira Market, said he usually receives orders the previous night but on Saturday night the mess secretary told him there was no clarity on whether delivery had to be made to Kaveri hostel. “An Sunday, around 7:30 am, the mess secretary told me to deliver 25 kg of chicken. Around 11 am, I got a call from a resident of the hostel who said I should not deliver chicken today. I don’t know his name,” said Ahmed.

He said that around 2 pm, the mess secretary called him to inquire why the chicken was not delivered. “Within five minutes, I again got a call asking if I had received a call to deliver chicken… He told me — agar tumne delivery ki, toh poore JNU me kaam band karwa dunga (if you deliver chicken to Kaveri, I will stop your supply to the entire JNU). Since I was getting contradictory instructions, I told him I will come and speak to both parties.”

Ahmed said that when he reached the campus around 3 PM, an argument between both camps was still on. “Since I was getting late, I told them I had to supply chicken to the rest of the hostels, so once there was a resolution they could contact me and I would come. I finished supplying to the other hostels by 4 pm, when the mess secretary called me again to deliver chicken,” he said.

“The moment I arrived and asked my boys to bring out the chicken from the vehicles, 4-5 boys came running towards me and said — hatao isse, andar rakho, chicken leke andar nahi jaana hai (remove this, keep it inside. You are not to go inside with the chicken). I told my boys to keep the meat inside since the atmosphere was tense. I was scared, so we just sat in the vehicle and came back to our shop,” he said.

Ahmed said he had already received orders for Wednesday from 4-5 hostels. “Nobody had anything against us personally. At that moment I felt scared, but JNU is a safe space,” he said.