New Delhi: Six tourists were arrested in Rishikesh’s Tapovan this week for allegedly assaulting local people after an altercation over public drinking escalated into a physical fight. In videos shared on social media, the tourists can be seen brutally beating a man.
A person recording the video can be heard saying, “This is a Delhi number vehicle.”
26-year-old Tulika Bisht, a resident of Dehradun, said such cases are very common.
“We see such cases every two days,” she said.
Residents now say they don’t want tourists from Haryana and NCR; tourists counter that they are powering the economy of the region.
“It’s mostly the people from Delhi and Haryana who create such nuisance. You can see in the recent case as well the car had a DL number plate,” said Bisht.
According to residents and police officers, vehicles with DL and HR number plates are often involved in such incidents. Littering, loud music, public drinking, drunk driving and rude behaviour are the things locals complain about.
Every week, such cases are reported in Uttarakhand. In June, a local couple was allegedly assaulted by tourists in Mussoorie after a road-rage incident. In another case of road rage in Pauri Garhwal in June, an argument between Rajasthani tourists and local people also turned violent, leaving several people injured.
All this has prompted fresh conversations around tourist behaviour and law and order in Uttarakhand’s popular hill destinations.
Kanti Kumar, a hotel owner in Dehradun, said most tourists from Delhi and Haryana don’t know how to speak to locals.
“Tourists come here in a different mood. Many people from Delhi and Haryana come here and create nuisance. They don’t know how to talk, and Pahadi people are egoistic. Their ego gets hurt if someone doesn’t speak nicely. They talk like, ‘Oye idhar aa,’ and small things escalate. Drinking and driving is another problem that’s getting difficult to deal with day by day,” he said
Police are making efforts to improve the situation.
“We have deployed more personnel at crowded tourist places. We have increased patrolling, and strict action against those who violate law and order and disturb public peace will continue in the future as well,” said a senior police officer on the condition of anonymity.
The police also appealed to the public to promptly report any untoward incident or information related to law and order so that timely and effective action can be taken.
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Aggression from both sides
Mohit Lohmor, 38, was in Uttarakhand with his five friends for a trek last week. He is from Delhi and speaks Haryanvi. He said it is not a binary between tourists and local people, but uneducated people on both sides who create such nuisance. He too had an argument with a resident during one of his trips.
“I was walking on the side, but a mule came directly toward me. So my friend turned its neck to the other side because it looked like it would hit me. The owner started shouting, saying, ‘How can you touch him? He will never attack anyone. He has more brains than you all.’ He was very touchy about small things. There were also some people who ate with us and laughed at our Haryanvi language. Some took it as disrespect, but it’s not like that,” said Lohmor, who goes to Uttarakhand every other month.
Police officers say that the problem is not one-sided. Sometimes residents gang up on tourists and take a small argument further, while in other cases tourists misbehave, drink in public and create nuisance in the name of fun.
“I have seen many such cases, mostly from Rishikesh, Mussoorie and the Garhwal region. Locals are very protective of their hills and they don’t tolerate any nuisance from tourists. But tourists come in a fun mood and often don’t take the rules seriously,” said former DGP of Uttarakhand Ashok Kumar.
Tulika Bisht was travelling from Dehradun to the hills when she got stuck in long traffic jams. During the journey, she saw tourists littering the roads. Later the same day, she also saw a group of young men dancing shirtless to loud music in the middle of the traffic.
Bisht said her friend confronted the littering family and there were no altercation as they were in public and they knew they were in the wrong.
“But we couldn’t say anything to those shirtless men because we didn’t want to pick a fight. You can’t fight with everyone, but such behaviour is intolerable,” said Bisht.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)