The incident took place during a seminar at Cochin University College of Engineering Kuttanad.
A group of students from north India have complained that they were served cutlets whose key ingredient was beef during a seminar at an engineering college in Kerala. The students said they came to know of the ingredient in the snack only after they ate them.
The students accused the college authorities of misleading them to, as they put it in a complaint to the government, "malign our dignity and hurt our religious sentiments".
The incident took place on Thursday on the sidelines of a seminar on "digital banking" at Kerala's Cochin University College of Engineering Kuttanad.
"When the snacks were being served, we asked the staff if this was vegetarian or non-vegetarian. We were told it was vegetarian. A few minutes later when some Malayali students ate it, they pointed that it was a beef cutlet. But by then, some vegetarian students as well as students who don't consume beef, had already eaten the beef," an engineering student from Bihar told NDTV.
"The students have been very upset... They have not been able to tell their families. We don't eat beef according to our religion," the student said.
College principal Sunilkumar N said some bank officials who organised the seminar had made arrangements for snacks for the participants.
"I did not know that non-vegetarian snacks were being served, let alone beef," he told NDTV, adding he has not received any formal complaint from the students.
The students say that earlier too they had complained to the district collector against the principal because he stopped them from performing Saraswati Puja on the campus. The event also coincided with a strike call by the BJP's youth wing ABVP.
The students alleged that the principal has offended their religious sentiments and the beef controversy was "directly linked" to his refusal to allow puja on the campus.
The principal dismissed the allegations as "totally unrelated". "A boy who sought permissions on everyone's behalf had to be suspended because the students exceeded the hours allowed for the procession, and even brought it within the college campus. I myself believe in Goddess Saraswati. I had issued a stop memo, which I didn't pursue, because it doesn't make sense to hold a hartal on the college campus on Saraswati Puja day," Dr Sunilkumar told NDTV.