NEW DELHI/ MUZAFFARNAGAR —Giving two hoots to the Supreme Court directives against forcing shopkeepers along the Kanwar Yatra route in Uttar Pradesh to display their identity, a local seer in Muzaffarnagar persists in his campaign to identify the vendors based on their religion.
In the chilling echo of vigilante moral policing, hotel and eatery workers along the pilgrimage route were allegedly subjected to degrading “religion checks” over the past week. Multiple eyewitnesses and local media reports confirm that the staff — primarily male — were forced to take off their pants to “prove” their religion by followers of Swamy Yashveer Maharaj, a controversial seer linked to earlier acts of public vigilantism.
The incidents occurred along NH-58, a major artery for Kanwar pilgrims heading to Haridwar. Several hotels and roadside dhabas catering to pilgrims were reportedly raided by saffron-clad men affiliated with Yashveer Maharaj’s “Bharatiya Sanatan Suraksha Dal,” a loosely organised outfit known for its aggressive majoritarian campaigns.
Videos that surfaced online — many since deleted or taken down for graphic content — show frightened workers being surrounded and heckled by groups of men, who demand they drop their trousers to prove they are circumcised — a crude and invasive test falsely equated with identifying Muslims.
‘Check Their Religion’ Screams
A Muslim worker at one such dhaba, spoke to a reporter under the condition that his location be withheld for safety reasons. “They came in the name of the yatra, but were shouting, ‘Muslimon ko bhagao (Drive out the Muslims).’ Then they demanded to inspect us,” he said, his voice shaking. “They made us undress. They said if we were Muslims, we were unfit to serve food to the Kanwariyas.”
Another staffer at a hotel on the highway said he was slapped and threatened with public flogging when he refused to comply. “They were livestreaming the whole thing. For them, this was a show of power. For us, it was humiliation,” he said.
This story was originally published in clarionindia.net. Read the full story here.