The Mira Bhayandar Municipal Corporation on Wednesday, August 19, passed a BJP-backed resolution, banning residents from bringing or keeping goats and conducting qurbani inside the housing societies, homes, shops and public places.

The decision to ban goats and qurbani in Mira Bhayandar housing societies comes nearly four months after communal tensions flared at a Mira Road housing complex after goats were brought into the society premises for qurbani.

The move comes after repeated clashes over goats being brought into residential complexes ahead of the festival. The resolution was passed at the civic general body meeting on Tuesday by a majority.

Under the rules, goats brought for sacrifice cannot be kept at unauthorised locations, and qurbani will be allowed only at places designated by the civic body. Permission will also be required to set up temporary Bakri Eid mandaps. Violations could lead to a fine as well as criminal action, BJP corporator Prashant Dalvi said.

The issue has been building for the past two years.

In several housing societies, residents have objected to goats being brought into common areas for the festival. Some of these disputes have led to confrontations and heightened tensions, turning what began as a society-level disagreement into a political issue.

The opposition has questioned the blanket nature of the restriction. Congress corporator Anil Sawant said a society should be allowed to take its own decision if all its members agreed to goats being brought into the premises.

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“If a goat is brought into a society three or four days before Bakri Eid and the society has no objection, it should not be banned,” Sawant said.

The move, however, comes against a more nuanced legal position on qurbani in neighbouring Mumbai.

The Bombay High Court, in a 2019 interim order, restrained the BMC from granting permission for slaughter inside individual residential flats, citing hygiene, sanitation and public health concerns. But it did not impose a blanket ban on slaughter in cooperative housing societies or community premises. Instead, it said permission should ordinarily not be granted where an authorised slaughter facility or designated community space was available within a reasonable one-kilometre walking distance.