The intention behind the order directing eateries along the Kanwar Yatra pilgrimage route to display the names of their owners and operators is not to create a religious divide but to ensure the well-being of devotees who abstain from certain food items, claimed the Muzaffarnagar Police in Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday.

Earlier in the day, Muzaffarnagar’s Senior Superintendent of Police Abhishek Singh was quoted as saying by local media that the decision was taken to “avoid confusion” among devotees who will travel on the route.

In 2023, Yashveer Maharaj, a priest from an ashram in Muzaffarnagar, had demanded that Muslim owners of establishments display their names on their businesses, The Indian Express reported.

On Wednesday, a post on his Facebook account said that the Muzaffarnagar authorities had on June 24 promised the priest that “all Muslims would write their Muslim names in bold letters on their hotels, dhabas, tea and sweet shops, and fruit and vegetable carts”.

This year’s Kanwar Yatra will start on July 22 and conclude on August 2. During this time, devotees, called Kanwariyas, will walk hundreds of kilometres to collect water from the Ganga near Haridwar and carry it back to their home states to offer at temples.

The devotees mainly come from Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan, Delhi and Madhya Pradesh.

On Wednesday, as the senior superintendent of police’s statement started garnering criticism on social media on Wednesday, including from Congress and Trinamool Congress leaders, the Muzaffarnagar Police issued a clarification.

The police said that during the pilgrimage, a large number of devotees who abstain from certain food items in the holy Hindu month of Shravan will pass through Muzaffarnagar to collect water from Haridwar.

In the past, law and order situations have arisen due to shopkeepers, who sell “all types of food”, allegedly naming their establishments in a way that “created confusion among Kanwariyas”, the police further claimed.

“To prevent a recurrence and in view of the faith of devotees, hotels, dhabas and shopkeepers selling food items on Kanwar Yatra route have been requested to voluntarily display the names of their owners and employees,” said the police.

It added: “The intention of this order is not to create any kind of religious divide but only to ensure the well-being of devotees passing through Muzaffarnagar and prevent counter-allegations and law and order situations.”

The police claimed this system existed in the past as well.

After the police’s directions to establishments were made public, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav called the order a “social crime” that wants to spoil the “peaceful atmosphere of harmony”.

In a post on social media, Yadav asked: “…and what will be known from the name of the one whose name is Guddu, Munna, Chhotu or Fatte?”

Yadav urged the court to take suo motu cognisance of the direction and “investigate the intentions of the government behind such administration and take appropriate punitive action”.

Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra called the move “blatantly illegal and anti-constitutional”.

Her party colleague Jawhar Sircar said: “If this is to encourage religious discrimination – then they should ban pilgrims to Amarnath as the whole route is serviced by Muslims!”

All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen chief and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi claimed this was equivalent to “Judenboycott”, which was the boycott of Jewish businesses in Nazi Germany.

On Wednesday, the Congress criticised the move and urged “all right-thinking people and the media” to rise against “this state-sponsored bigotry”.

“We cannot allow the BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] to push the country back into dark ages,” said Congress leader Pawan Khera in a social media post.

The BJP has been in power in Uttar Pradesh since March 2017.

Also read: Kanwar yatra food directive is unconstitutional – and the police know this