Proclaim your love for beef before a devotee of Lord Krishna and you may end up in jail.
Kangjam Joykumar has learnt this the hard way. He spent the last three days in the lockup of a police station in Manipur’s capital-town Imphal.

The 60-year-old was arrested just because he invoked Lord Rama and Krishna and then shouted: “beef is the best”. The “sacrilege” would have gone unnoticed, had he not done this before some monks of International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON).

The monks lodged a complaint with the police, who later arrested the elderly man for “insulting the religious beliefs of the monks”. He was released on bail on Monday.

Police officer Basant Singh said Joykumar allegedly shouted “Hare Rama, Hare Krishna, beef is the best” five times in front of the Iskcon monks when they were selling religious books near Roop Mahal tank in the heart of Imphal on Thursday last.

Joykumar’s “blasphemy” irked the monks and an altercation ensued. “During the heated exchange of words, two youths who were accompanying the old man allegedly roughed up one of the monks, Braja Bhakta Das,” Singh told Deccan Herald from Imphal.

Das was not injured, but his clothes were torn during the brief scuffle. The monk lodged an FIR with the police, who later arrested Joykumar, but failed to nab his companions.

The police booked Joykumar under Section 295 A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which deals with deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage the religious feelings of any citizen by insulting his or her religion or religious beliefs. Under this section an offender can be punished with imprisonment of three years or fine of Rs 1,000 or both.

“He (Joykumar) appeared to be alcoholic and a bit disturbed mentally. We quizzed him for three days, but he did not tell us clearly why he had uttered those words in front of the monks,” said Singh, the investigating officer for the case.

Most of the Meiteis — the majority community of Manipur — are Hindu Vaishnavites, and the ISKCON has a strong presence in the Imphal Valley. Joykumar too is a Meitei, and lives in Imphal’s Noaremthong Loukrakpam Leikai.

The twist in the tale was when the ISKCON monks themselves came to the police station on Saturday last and offered prasadam to the “blasphemer”.