Muzaffarnagar police order restaurants to display owners' names along Kanwar Yatra Route; Akhilesh slams order

Akhilesh Yadav, the president of the Samajwadi Party, declared on Thursday that the Muzaffarnagar police's directive to restaurants along the Kanwar Yatra route to post the names of their owners is a "social crime" and requested that the courts take suo motu cognizance of the issue.

In an effort to prevent "confusion," Muzaffarnagar police have ordered all restaurants along the Kanwar Yatra route to post the names of their owners. The opposition parties interpret this as an attack on Muslim businessmen.

Reacting to a news article on the order, Yadav wrote on X, "... And what if the name of the owner is Guddu, Munna, Chhotu or Fatte? What can you find out from these names?"


"The honourable court should take suo motu cognizance of this matter and investigate the intentions of the government and take appropriate punitive action," the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister said.

He also termed the order a "social crime".


The Kanwar Yatra path spans about 240 miles through the area, according to Muzaffarnagar police chief Abhishek Singh's statement on Monday. Every restaurant along the road, including hotels, dhabas, and carts, has been ordered to post the identities of the owners or employees who work there.

This has been done to make sure that there is no confusion among kanwariyas and that there is never a problem involving law and order. He had informed reporters that everyone was doing this voluntarily.

The choice has sparked discussion in the interim. Asaduddin Owaisi, the president of AIMIM, claimed that the action would discourage Muslims from participating in the yatra. "Every food shop or cart owner will now have to put his name on the board so that no kanwariya buys anything from a Muslim shop by mistake," the man wrote in a post on X, citing an order from the Uttar Pradesh Police. In South Africa, this was known as apartheid, and in Hitler's Germany, it was known as "Judenboycott."


[With PTI inputs]