All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) president Asaduddin Owaisi has strongly condemned the humiliating treatment of dhaba workers along the Kanwar Yatra route in Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh. His remarks came after reports surfaced that workers were forced to strip to prove their religion by Hindutva groups led by Swami Yashveer Maharaj.
“Are these vigilante groups the government that they are asking for Aadhaar cards?” Owaisi asked while speaking to reporters on July 2 in Hyderabad. “How can someone be stripped to check their religion? This is disgusting. Why hasn’t the police arrested anyone yet?”
The incident reportedly involved around 5,000 men demanding identification proofs from hotel and dhaba staff on the Delhi-Dehradun highway. In some cases, when staff failed to produce documents, they were stripped and humiliated.
Owaisi pointed out that hotels in the area had existed peacefully for generations. “Why didn’t this happen 10 years ago? What has changed now? Back then, the Kanwar Yatra used to happen in peace,” he said.
Citing a case in which even a Hindu staffer was forced to strip, Owaisi asked, “By what right are these men entering hotels and demanding documents? Who gave them that authority?”
The MP criticized Swami Yashveer Maharaj, a fringe figure who has been pushing for all eateries to display the names of their owners so Kanwar pilgrims can identify if a hotel is owned by Muslims or Hindus.
In a disturbing video from last month, Maharaj claimed Muslim workers “mix cow meat, spit or urine” into food served to pilgrims, making it “impure” and even harming their fertility — claims widely condemned as hateful and baseless.
Owaisi called for accountability: “These people are acting above the law. The rule of law must be followed. That is my only demand.”
