A tempo driver was brutally assaulted by a group of Kanwar Yatra devotees after his vehicle collided with them in Uttarakhand’s Haridwar district.
The incident took place on July 1 in Bahadrabad village. Tempo driver Dharmendra collided with an auto carrying Kanwar Yatra devotees.
Angered, the devotees pulled him out and started attacking him. The attack was so vicious, Dharmendra collapsed on the ground. He was admitted to the hospital with broken legs.
The mob fled when police intervened.
An officer at the Bahadrabad police station told Siasat.com that no case has been filed so far, as Dharmendra remains in an incapacitated, critical condition.
Videos of the attack have emerged on social media, with a majority of commenters condemning the violence, calling it an annual pattern associated with Kanwar Yatra devotees.
Kanwar Yatra worshippers began stirring up trouble on June 28, when local Hindutva extremist Swami Yashveer Maharaj took to the streets with 5,000 Hindu veers to ensure no Muslim-ran eateries were functioning under Hindu monikers. Locals alleged that dhaba cooks were made to strip by the veers to verify their religion.
“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 had claimed in a video posted to his Facebook handle last month.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Unnao MP Sakshi Maharaj on June 29 agreed with Swami Yashveer Maharaj’s demands.
The unauthorised, illegal action was condemned on July 2 by the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) national president, Asaduddin Owaisi, who asked, “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??
The political spectrum, however, remains split on the controversial annual spillage of Kanwar Yatra violence. The governments of UP and Uttarakhand as well as the Supreme Court have been going back and forth for the last few years over the issue of eateries along the Kanwar Yatra route.
