Owing to the holy month of Sawan is starting from July 22 and in such a situation the journey of Kanwariyas will also begin. Police in Muzaffarnagar have ordered all eateries on the Kanwar Yatra route to display the names of their owners to avoid any "confusion", a move seen by the opposition parties as targeting Muslim traders. The decision has drawn flak from politicians and members of the civil society.
Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday said the Muzaffarnagar police's order asking eateries on the Kanwar Yatra route to display their owners' names is a "social crime" and asked the courts to take suo motu cognisance of the matter. AKhilesh Yadav also termed the order a "social crime".
Reacting to a news article on the order, Yadav wrote on X, "...And what if the name of the owner is Guddu, Munna, Chhotu or Fatte? What can you find out from these names?" "The honourable court should take suo motu cognizance of this matter and investigate the intentions of the government and take appropriate punitive action," the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister said.
Muzaffarnagar police chief Abhishek Singh on Monday said, "About 240 km of Kanwar Yatra route falls in the district. All the eateries, including hotels, dhabas and carts, on the route, have been asked to display the names of their proprietors or those working on these shops. This has been done to ensure that there should be no confusion among kanwariyas and no law and order situation arises. All are following this voluntarily," he said. Muzaffarnagar police chief Abhishek Singh said all are following it voluntarily
AIMIM leader Owaisi said in his post in Hindi on X, "As per the order of Uttar Pradesh Police, now every food shop or cart owner will have to put his name on the board so that no Kanwariya buys anything from a Muslim shop by mistake. This was called Apartheid in South Africa and in Hitler's Germany it was called 'Judenboycott'.Owaisi likened the move to Hitler's 'Judenboycott'
