North India The police have been accused of ‘Muslims is fueling the economic boycott of Before that The police had directed restaurants to display the names of their owners to ‘avoid confusion’ during the Hindu holy month. Thousands of Hindus will start the pilgrimage on foot this month.
Police in Muzaffarnagar district of the most populous northern state of Uttar Pradesh claimed that the order was issued verbally during the rainy month of the Hindu calendar and is issued every year. According to reports, the state authorities have also asked carts selling food items to follow the orders.
Millions of devotees of the Hindu god Shiva make pilgrimages on foot to holy places in the northern states of Uttarakhand, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh to draw water from the Ganges River, known as the ‘Kanwar Yatra’. This year the journey will start from July 22.
Earlier, the police cited the practice of food restrictions on pilgrims, such as not consuming meat, to justify the directives issued this week.
Senior Superintendent of Police Abhishek Singh said that all small and big food shops in the area of regarding 240 km under their jurisdiction have been directed to register the names of their ‘owners or shopkeepers’.
He said that the decision has been taken to ensure that ‘pilgrims are not confused’ and avoid any possible law and order situation in the state.
Muzaffarnagar police public relations officer Inspector Rakesh Kumar told Reuters news agency, “This time a priest requested us to take action so that nothing might be eaten that might harm the holy shrine.” During the month their efforts suffered.’
The order has been heavily criticized by opposition parties and members of civil society as further discriminating once morest disadvantaged minorities in the state, which is ‘reminiscent of apartheid in South Africa’. .’
Earlier, calls for an economic boycott of Muslims by far-right organizations in northern and western parts of India had scared minorities from running their businesses.
Akhilesh Yadav, head of the opposition Samajwadi Party, said in a post on X: ‘Such orders are social crimes, which seek to disturb the peaceful atmosphere of harmony.’
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Pawan Khera, a spokesperson for the main opposition Congress, asked in a post on X that ‘this directive is a step towards an economic boycott of Muslims.’
According to Asaduddin Owaisi, a lawmaker from Hyderabad: ‘It is called apartheid in South Africa and ‘Jewish boycott’ in Hitler’s Germany.
Muzaffarnagar, now ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), was the scene of communal riots in 2013 that left around 65 people dead and thousands displaced.
Although Modi was sworn in for a third consecutive term as prime minister last month with the support of his allies, his BJP lost 29 seats in Uttar Pradesh, where Muslims account for a fifth of the 24 crore population.
The BJP and Narendra Modi’s federal government have been accused on several occasions by civil society, opposition groups and some foreign governments of taking decisions aimed at fueling religious discrimination, but the Prime Minister says That they are opposed to Islam or Muslims and do not differentiate between Hindus and Muslims.
Despite these statements, discrimination continues in Uttar Pradesh.
Earlier this month, a BJP MLA in Muzaffarnagar had said that Muslims should not name their shops following Hindu gods during the Yatra. According to the newspaper ‘Times of India’, he said that ‘when pilgrims find out (that the shops they eat at are run by Muslims), it creates controversy.’
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has banned the open sale of meat on the roads as a mark of respect to the people participating in the ‘Kanwar Yatra’.
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2024-07-20 04:54:49
