Kolkata Beef Festival Cancelled After Barrage of Threats

The organisers have been forced to cancel the event, as they could no longer guarantee the safety of attendees.

A ‘beef festival’ in Kolkata had to change its name after alleged threats.

(Photo Courtesy: Facebook/Kolkata Beep Festival)

A ‘Beef Festival’ that was to be organised in Kolkata on 23 June now stands cancelled after the organisers received multiple threats.

Organised by event management firm ‘Accidental Note’, the ‘Kolkata Beef Festival’ was popularised on Facebook and thousands had marked themselves ‘going’ or ‘interested’ on the event’s Facebook page.

On 5 June, the organisers changed the name of the event from the ‘Kolkata Beef Festival’ to the ‘Kolkata Beep Festival’ after they allegedly received multiple threats from people who raised objection to an event where beef would be served openly.

Today, the organisers deleted their event page on Facebook while the event management firm put up a post on their page claiming that they received multiple threatening calls and were thus not sure if they’ll be able to ensure the safety of their guests if they went through with the event.

On 5 June, the The Times Of India had reported that the organisers were mulling over dropping the word “beef” from the name of the event due to the threats.

The same day, the organisers put up a post on their Facebook page which read:

“For very obvious reasons we had no choice but to change the name. The Accidental Note does not make food political. The objective of the event is to provide a day full of some amazing food and let everyone have a good time. We are happy to see the support we got from the people around us and we intend on making this event a success by providing the best possible experience to people without any compromise. We hope that you will help us make this a grand success and we assure our best service and some really amazing food. Once again we would like to point out that although the focus is on a wide arrangement of beef dishes, we shall also have some amazing pork dishes with it. The menu remains the same, and we shall update on that soon.”

“Multiple names were suggested when we put up the issue on social media. We considered a more generic ‘Kolkata Meat Festival’ for a while but I was personally uneasy about having to replace the word ‘beef’ when the very essence of the festival was all about beef dishes. So a college student suggested we replace ‘beef’ with ‘beep’, as this amounts to censorship. The idea resonated with all of us and we have changed the name of the event to Kolkata Beep Festival,” said Arjun Kar, one of the organisers to TOI at the time.

The report also stated that one of the anonymous calls that the organisers received also “urged fellow ‘Gau Rakshaks’ to raid the venue on the day of the event”.

(With inputs from Times Of India)