Lucknow, May 3 (IANS): Non-vegetarian food has been banned in the Baba Saheb Bhim Rao Ambedkar University (BBAU) mess here, officials said on Tuesday.

The decision was taken after "tension prevailed" in the varsity following a statement by Dalit thinker Kancha Ilayya in the Osmania university, at Hyderabad, that eating beef was beneficial for health.

There were protests in the BBAU after April 14, the day when the statement first appeared. 

The ban has been enforced and only vegetarian dishes would be served in the varsity mess. Special occasional demands for non-veg food would also not be entertained, said the university's spokesman Kamal Jaiswal.

Protests were staged soon after Kancha Illaya's statement. Vice-chancellor R.C. Sobti went through the protest rally's CDs and accepted the proposal to ban non-veg food on the campus. 

On Tuesday, student leaders led a protest march of about 200 students to demand restarting of the serving of non-veg food at the mess, terming the decision to ban it as anti-Dalit.

Dwijendra Tripathi, of the Congress, billed the move as anti-democratic and questioned the authority of the university to decide what students should eat. 

Uttar Pradesh Bharatiya Janata Party spokesman Vijay Bahadur Pathak defended the decision of the university administration, saying anything disturbing harmony on the campus must be done away with.