In Jain Dharma, narak-gati does not come from only one act like eating non-veg. It is the result of heavy violence, intense passions, cruelty, deceit, greed, and accumulated karma over a long time.

So the simple answer is:

• Mahavir Swami was a Tirthankar and embodied complete ahimsa.
• A person who eats non-veg is not automatically a narki.
• Likewise, a vegetarian person is not automatically free from bad karma.
• Karma decides gati, not just one habit.

Also, we should not say with certainty that “those people from that time are now in narak” unless a Tirthankar has declared it. In Jainism, the exact state of any soul is known only through keval-jnan, not ordinary guessing.

So the correct Jain understanding is: Non-veg eating creates himsa and bad karma, but narak is caused by deeper and heavier karmic bondage, not by diet alone.

If you want, I can also explain this in simple Gujarati or Hindi.