Hyderabad: All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) president Asaduddin Owaisi on Wednesday, July 2, condemned the brutal humiliations suffered by dhaba owners on the Kanwar Yatra route in Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar district.
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, July 2, Owaisi was asked about the violence unleashed by Hindutva leader Swami Yashveer Maharaj wherein 5000 Hindu veers demanded identification proofs from eatery staff in hotels falling in the Kanwar Yatra route, failing which they were forcefully stripped.
“There are many hotels there, and have been for generations. Why didn’t this happen 10 years ago?” asked the Hyderabad MP, expressing his appalled at the worsening law and order situation in Uttar Pradesh.
“Are the vigilante groups government authorities that can demand Aadhaar cards? And such violence, the forced stripping of a man to check his genitals, is so disgusting. How is the police not arresting these people?” he questioned.
Citing the incident involving a Hindu staffer made to strip, Owaisi said, “They are acting as if they are above the law. By what right do you enter the hotels and harass people? Who are they to demand documents? Why is the government not taking action against them?”
The Supreme Court, the UP government, and the Uttarakhand government have been going back and forth for the last few years over the issue of eateries along the Kanwar Yatra route. Swami Yashveer Maharaj has been an extremist, fringe figure in the discussion demanding all eateries display the names of hotel owners, so pilgrims may know if they are eating in a Hindu-owned eatery or a Muslim-owned eatery.
“Worshippers unintentionally commit sacrilege when Muslim staff mix in cow meat, spit, or urinate into their food to make it impure. This makes men impotent and women infertile,” Maharaj claimed in a video posted to his Facebook handle last month.
Referring to Maharaj’s supporters, the AIMIM leader concluded by saying that “Rule of law must be followed – that is my only demand. Ten years ago, the Kanwar Yatra used to pass peacefully. There was harmony in Muzaffarnagar. Now these troublemakers have come.”
