Sambhal: For 12 days last year, Talib Hussain was in a lock-up. A restaurant owner in Uttar Pradesh’s Sambhal, Hussain was arrested by the police for allegedly selling chicken wrapped in newspapers with images of Hindu gods. This year, once again, he has been forced to pull his shutters down during the Hindu holy months of sawan.
An aggressive, proactive UP Police force in Sambhal has ordered Hussain and about 40 other restaurants selling non-vegetarian food to shut shop in the two monsoon months when Kanwariyas pass through the town. But there is no written order and no official knows where the instructions came from.
“I had switched to selling only vegetarian [food] at the beginning of monsoons,” Hussain said, referring to the month when Shiva devotees, known as Kanwariyas, take out their annual Kanwar Yatra procession. He had put up new flex banners at his Mehak restaurant on Munsif road with images of vegetarian dishes. “But the police did not allow me to run the restaurant even then,” Hussain added.
The UP Police’s move has left restaurant owners and their employees, who are mostly Muslims, jobless for the past one month.
“If they (Hindus) don’t eat meat during monsoon, then that doesn’t mean that we can be troubled this way. If this is a matter of one religion’s faith, then we can’t shut another person’s business because of it,” said Mohammad Asif, a worker at one of the shut restaurants..
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Police don’t have an order
Last week, as Hussain rolled up the shutters for ThePrint, two policemen showed up too. Dust covered tables, laminated vegetarian menu cards strewn around, and a locked kitchen room did not convince the policemen that Mehak restaurant had been shut. They took photos of a flex board inside the shop, which had images of chicken dishes.
“What difference does changing a board outside make? He still has a board with non-veg photos inside the restaurant. What’s the guarantee that he is not selling chicken?” said one of the policemen to ThePrint.
The police in Sambhal is keeping a strict check to ensure that restaurants selling non-vegetarian dishes remain shut. While inspectors and constables who make the rounds claimed there is an order to ensure the shops are shut, no one could produce it.
At Sambhal police station, station house officer (SHO) Omkar Singh denied that he had issued any such instruction to other officers. “We have not shut any hotels. We have no order,” he said.
Singh, however, added that to maintain public harmony, the police has the right to stop or remove any items temporarily under CrPC.
“This is the route of the kanwariyas. The police has the power to keep the law and order situation under control. There has not been any issue so far,” said Singh.
No prior written notice was provided to the restaurant owners that their businesses will have to be shut for two months. Several police officers said there was an order but nobody had seen it or could produce it.
Meanwhile, Sambhal District Magistrate Manish Bansal clarified that no order to shut non-veg restaurants has gone out from his office.
“Open display of meat is not allowed. The owners have been told to cover the meat shops which are operating in the open. That is the instruction from the government also. They can sell it inside the shops. But there is no order to shut the shops,” said Bansal.
But on the ground, the policemen on motorbikes are keeping a strict watch on all restaurants selling meat.
“This is Sambhal. Things might turn [for the worse] any moment here. Even if one Kanwariya says that someone is eating meat, then all hell will break loose. Communal flare-ups are common here. Within minutes everything will be destroyed. We have to take these measures to ensure safety,” said a police official who did not want to be named.
Can’t sell vegetarian either
Six months ago, Haji Aslam opened a small restaurant at the ground floor of his house, away from the main road. The small Karim Dhaba covers his household expenditure.
Earlier this month, when the police ordered him to shut the shop, the meagre income he receives from 10 to 40 customers daily turned to zero.
“My restaurant is not even in the designated Kanwariyas’ route. Yet, policemen from the chowki came and closed my shop. They didn’t give me any reason,” said Haji.
A few days later, two of his employees went to the police to enquire when they could resume the business. Haji said the police told them to “go home and be patient”.
More than 250 families in Sambhal are dependent on the restaurant business, and many of them are suffering because of the unofficial ban. With their main source of income halted, they are unable to pay the rent for the shop, or the salaries to their employees, or meet their household expenses.
“We have high expenses for two months. I don’t know why the government is ignoring that. We were barely recovering from Covid lockdowns. This is another Covid for us,” said Mohsin Abbas, who owns a restaurant in Sambhal.
The day the police came to shut meat-selling restaurants, many owners requested the police to let them sell vegetarian dishes. But they claim the police didn’t allow them to keep their shops open at all. On 17 July, restaurant owners reached out to the police with the same request, but to no avail.
“We appealed that we will only sell vegetarian food and get new flex banners made. We told the administration that we should be allowed to put curtains in front of our shops, or to let us only do deliveries, but we got no response,” said Abbas.
The police, on the other hand, threatened the restaurant owners that an inquiry will be initiated against them if they open their shops.
“The police’s argument was that we will use the same utensils to prepare vegetarian food in which we prepare non-veg food,” said Asif.
BJP western Uttar Pradesh vice president Rajesh Singhal claimed that meat-selling restaurant owners shut the shops of their own free will.
“Every year during monsoon, meat shops are shut down by the owners themselves. They can eat meat at their homes. That is not restricted,” said Singhal. He added that shutting down the shops is not a financial strain on the owners.
“The owners earn enough in 11 months in a year that if they have to keep the shop shut for one month, they can manage well. They shut their hotels during Ramzan also. And they shut it during the monsoon. No community is targeted with this move,” said Singhal.
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Little has changed
Last year, ThePrint had reported how Talib Hussain was arrested by the UP Police for allegedly selling chicken wrapped in newspapers with images of Hindu gods on them. He was also accused of attacking the policemen with a knife.
He was asked to shut his meat shop for four days in August due to a procession of Lord Kalki that was scheduled to pass through the lane where his restaurant is located. Sambhal is believed to be the birthplace of Lord Kalki, considered to be the tenth and last avatar of Lord Vishnu. The city celebrates his birth with an annual procession.
His family had refuted the charges, saying they only pack dry rotis in old newspapers. Hussain was booked under sections 295A (deliberate and malicious act intended to outrage religious feelings of any community), 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race place of birth, residence), 307 (attempt to commit murder), and 353 (assault or criminal force to deter a public servant from discharging their duties).
The police has yet to file a chargesheet in the case. Hussain is currently out on bail, recovering from the shock.
In June, his son Tabish also opened a new restaurant a few metres away from the Mehak restaurant. Named after his father, Talib Dhaba displays a banner carrying the images of the father-son duo. Like his father, Tabish also sells special chicken dishes at his one-storey shop.
But before his new business could take off, the shutters came down on this one too.