All the shops belonging to the minority community reopened in Dharchula town of Pithoragarh district in Uttarakhand on Monday, March 18 following the intervention of the district administration. Reports of illegal and unconstitutional “boycott” calls had appeared in the national media. Here is a report that has appeared in Prashantnews late night Monday.
Following reports of these boycott calls (The Telegraph), Pithoragarh Superintendent of Police (SP) Rekha Yadav on Monday evening said all the shops in Dharchula have reopened on Monday. “I want to make it clear that nobody has asked or forced these shopkeepers to close their establishments. There were some issues. But now normalcy has been restored,” Yadav said. She further clarified that some shopkeepers have themselves closed their shops on Saturday. Since Sunday was a closed day, the shops were open on Monday, she said. Importantly, she also said an FIR was lodged against some people, who were shouting in the area. But after the FIR, the calm has been restored, she said.
Sabrangindia had reported how, on March 18, Monday, a delegation of the Jan Manch (Pithoragarh) and the CPI(ML) of Uttarakhand met with the District Magistrate of and submitted a memorandum against the cancellation of registration of shopkeepers from a minority religious minority in Uttarakhand’s Dharchula. As per the said memorandum, the campaign being run against the Muslim shopkeepers is a result of the poisonous politics of communal polarization and is a matter of serious concern.
Earlier, a report of The Telegraph, the local traders’ association in Dharchula unilaterally “cancelled the registrations of 91 shops” after a Muslim youth, who used to work at a barber shop, allegedly eloped with two girls to his home state of Uttar Pradesh. Referring to this incident, the memorandum states that only the person accused of the crime can be held responsible by the authorities, but under the guise of the incident, the whole community is being targeted.
Uttarakhand has been witnessing growing tensions targeting the minority community since 2021 when the notorious Dharma Sansad was held in December 2021. In 2022, television channels like TimesNow ran repeated telecasts with provocative news headlines titled, Mazhar Jihad, Land Grab in Devabhoomi that are being currently under the scrutiny of the NBDSA. Tensions were reportedly also brewing in the area after alleged incidents of love jihad or elopement where two persons were arrested from Bareilly city of Uttar Pradesh and two minor girls were recovered.
Meanwhile, Congress MLA from Dharchula, Harish Dhami has described the incident as politically motivated and demanded stern action against all those people who are creating unrest in the area. He said all those people who have come to Dharchula for business cannot be asked to leave.
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