‘Anti-Muslim’: Opposition slams UP’s order on displaying names of eatery owners

Shubhadeep Choudhury

New Delhi, July 18

An order by the Muzaffarnagar district police in Uttar Pradesh asking eateries on the Kanwar Yatra route to display the names of owners to avoid any “confusion” has been criticised by opposition parties as “communally motivated and directed against Muslim traders”.

Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera called the order “state-sponsored bigotry”. AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi compared it with apartheid and “Judenboykott”, the boycott of Jewish businesses in Hitler’s Germany.

“Preparations of Sawan month have started in the district. 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,” Muzaffarnagar police chief Abhishek Singh had said on Monday.

The motive, the police officer claimed, was to ensure there should be no confusion among kanwariyas and no law and order situation arose. “All are following this voluntarily,” he said.

The order followed a statement issued by Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) secretary general Bajrang Bagra on July 9 claiming that Muslims were selling puja items at various Hindu pilgrimage sites by “concealing their identity”. The VHP had urged all state governments to take effective steps to prevent Muslims from running such shops “so that the faith of Hindus was not hurt”.

In a post on X, Khera said, “Not just political parties, all right-thinking people and the media must rise against this state-sponsored bigotry. We cannot allow the Bharatiya Janata Party to push the country back into dark ages.”

Owaisi, in a post in Hindi, said, “As per the Uttar Pradesh Police order, 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’.”

In Lucknow, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav said the Muzaffarnagar police’s order asking eateries on the Kanwar Yatra route to display their owners’ names was a “social crime” and asked the courts to take suo motu cognisance of the matter. “And what if the name of the owner is Guddu, Munna, Chhotu or Fatte? What can you find out from these names?” Akhilesh wrote on X.

Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha member Saket Gokhale filed a case with the NHRC against the Muzaffarnagar police for issuing the order. “I have filed a case with NHRC against the Muzaffarnagar police for the shocking order discriminating against Muslims,” Gokhale wrote on X.

After the opposition, the BJP said India’s “secularism couldn’t be so fragile that a uniform order asking all eateries to display the name of the owner and workers should disrupt it”.

BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya said almost two decades ago, all eateries in Mumbai’s business district prominently displayed the name of the eatery, its owner, contact number, etc. “If a practice of this kind wasn’t discriminatory, why should an order in Muzaffarnagar be seen with a different lens? Just because it is Uttar Pradesh?” he asked. Senior BJP leader Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said, “The hasty orders of some overzealous officials may give rise to the disease of untouchability… Faith must be respected, but untouchability must not be patronised.”