Assault on culture Cong slams order asking Muzaffarnagar eateries on Kanwar route to display owners' names

New Delhi, Jul 18 (PTI) The Congress on Thursday slammed as "an assault on India's culture" the Muzaffarnagar Police order asking eateries on the Kanwar Yatra route to display their owners' names and said those who wanted to decide who eats what, will now decide who buys what from whom.
     Hitting out at the BJP-RSS, the Congress also said the intention of such an order was to normalise economic boycott of Muslims.
     Muzaffarnagar Police chief Abhishek Singh earlier on Monday said, "Preparations of Sawan month have started in the district. About 240 km of Kanwar Yatra route falls in the district. All the eateries, including hotels, dhabas and carts, on the route have been asked to display the names of their proprietors or those working on these shops."
     "This has been done to ensure that there should be no confusion among kanwariyas and no law and order situation arises. All are following this voluntarily," he told reporters.
     Congress' media and publicity department head Pawan Khera said the intention behind this is to find out who is a Hindu and who is a Muslim.
     "The intention may also be to find out about the caste, there may also be an intention to find out who is a Dalit. The intention behind this is to normalize the economic boycott of Muslims. We will not let this intention succeed," Khera said.
     "Whether it is about economic boycott of a Hindu or economic boycott of a Muslim, we will not let it succeed," he added.
     Khera said the owners of many meat exporting companies are Hindus.
     "The way a Hindu exports meat, it remains meat, it does not become daal chawal. Similarly, if Altaf or Rashid is selling mango-guava, then mango-guava will not become meat," he added.
     Attacking the BJP-RSS, the Congress leader said they are attacking the Indian culture and trying to enter people's homes.
     "If they have to be stopped from entering homes, this ideology has to be stopped," he said.
     "Those who wanted to decide who eats what, will now also decide who buys what from whom?" Khera said.
     When this was objected to, they said that when Halal is written on the boards of Dhabas, then one does not protest, he said.
     "The answer to this is that even when a hotel board states that it is 'pure vegetarian', we still do not ask the name of the hotel owner, cook or waiter," he said.
     Having the words 'pure vegetarian', 'jhatka', 'halal' or 'kosher' written on a street stall helps the person to choose the food of his choice but who will benefit from writing the name of the dhaba owner, Khera asked.
     Those who wanted to decide who eats what, will now also decide who buys what from whom, he said.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)