Omar Rashid 
New Delhi: A mob of kanwariyas in Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar vandalised a car and thrashed its driver on the alleged pretext that his car had brushed against the ‘kawad’ (or ‘kanwar’) carried by one of them during their yatra on July 21 and damaged or desecrated it.
However, it seems, that no ‘kawad’ was damaged by the said car and, according to the police, the kanwariyas indulged in the violence unprovoked. The Wire has seen the FIR lodged in the case, in which the police said that the kanwariyas launched the brutal attack for no reason. The police lodged an FIR against ten to 15 unknown kanwariyas.
The kawad refers to the pole carried by kanwariya pilgrims that has containers fastened to each end. The kanwariyas use the containers to carry Ganga jal during their annual yatra.
On July 21, violent scenes were caught on camera at the Shri Laxmi Food Plaza located on the road to Haridwar. A group of kanwariyas, ten to 15 in number, vandalised a car and thrashed its owner, even in the presence of a few policemen. The incident was caught on video, which showed the kanwariyas violently tearing the car apart and even jumping on top of it to damage it.
The driver of the car ran inside the restaurant to save himself from the mob of enraged kanwariyas, who also obstructed traffic on the Meerut-Haridwar highway. The man, one Aquib, was rescued by police. The car is registered in Dehradun, Uttarakhand.
When senior police officers reached the spot, the kanwariyas told them that the car had damaged (khandit in Hindi, to be exact) the kawad carried by one of their associates around 2 kilometres away from the restaurant towards the Haridwar side of the highway.
But Aquib told an independent news media portal called Journo Mirror on July 23 that the allegations that his vehicle brushed against the kanwariyas or blew horn at them, were false.
An injured Aquib said he was going to Meerut to drop his brother-in-law when his car was vandalised by the kanwariyas. In this video, he explained what happened.
And in the FIR lodged in the case, sub-inspector Ashutosh Kumar Singh noted that when the kanwariyas were asked about the particular damaged kawad, they did not provide any answers. Even upon doing a spot inspection on the Haridwar side of the kawad route, the police “did not find the kawad of any devotee being damaged”, said Singh in the FIR lodged in the early hours of July 21 at Chhapar police station.
Circle officer Sadar Raju Kumar Sab, speaking to the media a few hours after the incident, said there was no confirmation of any kawad being damaged.
In the FIR, Singh said that the kanwariyas “intentionally” stopped the car and assaulted its driver “for no reason”. They were charged with sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita related to voluntarily causing hurt, wrongful restraint, public nuisance, rioting, unlawful assembly, obstruction of traffic and mischief.
The kanwariyas also blocked traffic on the highway, leading to a long jam, which caused inconvenience to commuters, especially those travelling towards Delhi in an ambulance for treatment, said police.
The FIR said that due to the traffic jam created by the violent kanwariyas, women and children and the relatives of the sick took to the roads in desperation. They started to scream and cry for help, and as “chaos” unfolded, this “created an atmosphere of fear”, said Singh.
The kanwariyas did not listen to their requests to maintain peace or allow traffic to function normally, said the police.
Pradeep Kumar, the owner of the restaurant where this incident unfolded, said one or two chairs were damaged by the kanwariyas but that he was saved from further damage by the intervention of the police.
According to Kumar, some kanwariyas were drinking tea at his restaurant when someone from the group received a call from another kanwariya who was still on the road. The kanwariya on the phone allegedly asked the kanwariyas at the restaurant to intercept and stop a particular car by placing a blockage near the restaurant, said Kumar.
Since there were a lot of people, Kumar could not clearly identify the driver but said he seemed to be alone. The violence lasted 15 minutes, said Kumar, adding that after the incident, a team of police visited the alleged site where the kawad was broken along with the kanwariyas but found nothing.