New Delhi: An outlet of fast-food chain KFC was forcibly shut down by a group of men, associated with the Hindu Raksha Dal, who staged a protest against meat sale in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad. A video of the incident, reported by ABP News, has been doing rounds on social media. 

In the video, the mob can be heard raising slogans of ‘Har Har Mahadev’ and ‘Jai Shree Ram’ at the KFC outlet, near Indirapuram police station across the Delhi border.

One of the members was heard telling a KFC staff member, “This is the month of Sawan, ‘non-veg’ should not be sold”.

“This is not just for here but wherever meat is sold – in the month of Sawan, meat sale should be banned. Everyone should raise their voice against such sale,” another person says in the video.

According to the ABP News report, the mob forced shut the food joint in presence of police personnel.

The outfit also staged a protest outside a local eatery, Nazir, disrupting operations and temporarily shuttering it down as well.

There have been similar impositions in the past, especially in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, around Kanwar Yatra which is held in the Hindu month of Sawan, considered a holy month, especially for devotees of Shiva. Believers often observe fasts and refrain from consuming meat and alcohol during this period.

This year, too, local authorities imposed restrictions on the sale of meat in several places, though no state-wide ban has been put in place.

The Wire has earlier reported how Hindutva politics has been growing around Kanwar Yatra. Earlier this month, Delhi’s culture and tourism minister Kapil Mishra said that meat shops on the Yatra route in Delhi would remain shut with no exemption, claiming most of them “were running illegally”. The MCD clarified that no such directive had been made, but people closed their shops voluntarily.

Meanwhile, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) has already been pasting saffron stickers on the walls of restaurants in Delhi with 'garv se kaho hum Hindu hain' and 'sanatani vyaparik sansthan’ written on them.

In cities like Varanasi and Haridwar, more stringent restrictions are put in place and violations can lead to criminal prosecution. 

Last year, a controversy broke out when the UP government asked all shops on the Yatra route to be marked and all vendors to display their names prominently for buyers to identify the religion of the sellers. Even fruit carts and puncture repair shops were marked.

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