No intent to create religious rift: Police on order to display eatery owners’ names at Kanwar Yatra
Last year, a priest from Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar had demanded that Muslim owners of establishments display their names on their businesses.
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The intention behind the order directing eateries along the Kanwar Yatra pilgrimage route to display the names of their owners and operators is not to create a religious divide but to ensure the well-being of devotees who abstain from certain food items, claimed the Muzaffarnagar Police in Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday.
Earlier in the day, Muzaffarnagar’s Senior Superintendent of Police Abhishek Singh was quoted as saying by local media that the decision was taken to “avoid confusion” among devotees who will travel on the route.
In 2023, Yashveer Maharaj, a priest from an ashram in Muzaffarnagar, had demanded that Muslim owners of establishments display their names on their businesses, The Indian Express reported.
On Wednesday, a post on his Facebook account said that the Muzaffarnagar authorities had on June 24 promised the priest that “all Muslims would write their Muslim names in bold letters on their hotels, dhabas, tea and sweet shops, and fruit and vegetable carts”.
This year’s Kanwar Yatra will start on July 22 and conclude on August 2. During this time, devotees, called Kanwariyas, will walk hundreds of kilometres to collect water from the Ganga near Haridwar and carry it back to their home states to offer at temples.
The devotees mainly come from Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan, Delhi and Madhya Pradesh.
On Wednesday, as the senior superintendent of police’s statement started garnering...
