Contrary to the outrage displayed by India’s mainstream media through their headlines, Muslim vendors who were interviewed on camera by those very media groups say on record that they find nothing objectionable in the order issued by Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand ahead of the Kanwar Yatra, which began today, 22 July.
Following is an interview by a reporter of News24, which is run by Congress leader and former journalist Rajeev Shukla. The Muslim fruit seller in the video says he lives in a neighbourhood near the market and his regular customers, most of whom are Hindu, have had no problem with his identity. He says further that the media is trying to provoke him against the state government order while he remains unfazed by it.
Following is a Muslim shopkeeper based in Ayodhya who says “naam se koi farq nahin padta hai” (my name makes no difference), adding that the city does not discriminate on the basis of people’s religious identities.
Then, National president of All India Muslim Jamaat, Maulana Mufti Shahabuddin Razvi Barelvi, says there is nothing wrong with the order of the Uttar Pradesh government.
A shopkeeper who sells Yunani medicine in Balia says the order makes no difference:
The order was apparently issued after many videos surfaced in the past few years showing some Muslims spitting on food while cooking before serving the dishes and others hiding behind fake Hindu identities along the route of Hindu pilgrims, which got revealed when the customers made payments for their purchases via UPI.
Some Muslims have been caught urinating on food or utensils that store edible items.
The Muslim fruit seller in the next video was caught by a group of lawyers who saw him urinating on the mangoes he was supposed to sell to gullible customers.
And the phenomenon is not restricted to India, as the next video shot in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, shows.
On a few occasions, Muslims have been caught disguised as sadhus!
On being caught red-handed several times, some Muslim shopkeepers who were masquerading as Hindus stopped accepting UPI payments.
It’s an important issue from the Hindu point of view as pilgrims from the community, in particular, follow a strictly vegetarian or vegan regimen during their ritualistic penance, which does not gel with common Islamic practices of sanitation and meat-eating.
Reacting to the accusation of spitting on food, an elderly Muslim woman says it’s a practice common among Shi’ahs whereas she, a Sunni, does not do it.
While the claim by the Muslim woman above is questionable, the religion-illiterate reporter does not challenge her to substantiate her allegation against Shi’ahs.
