Purola, an otherwise small calm hill town nestled in the Uttarkashi district of Uttarakhand, is ‘tense’ ahead of the ‘Mahapanchayat’ (mass gathering) called by the right-wing organisations on June 15. Police are checking every vehicle leading towards Purola, and the local administration has clamped Section 144 while issuing a stern warning.
“We won’t allow anyone to conduct Mahapanchayat,” said Teerth Pal, Assistant District Magistrate, Purola. However, the locals are refusing to soften stand. News18 team at ground zero saw that local traders were holding a meeting to discuss the issue.
In the last few days, violent images and videos from Purola have left many baffled.
In fact, an alleged ‘love jihad’ case involving two youths – one of them to be a Muslim – caught while eloping with a minor local girl on May 26 resulted in mass protests. Next, some posters appeared in the town asking Muslim traders to leave, and many of the terrified ones have left. One of them, Shakeel Ahmad, a septuagenarian, who has been running a cloth shop at Purola for the last four decades, has returned to Dehradun.
“We had good relations with the locals. It’s politics that has made things worse,” Shakeel says, while also expressing discontent on the recent tweet of Asaduddin Owaisi over Purola.
"Muslims are aghast that the community is being targeted for the alleged criminal act committed by one among them, and that their Pasmanda identity and allegiance to the BJP have failed to insulate them from the Hindutva brigade’s manufactured fury. Truly, the BJP’s Pasmanda…— Asaduddin Owaisi (@asadowaisi) June 12, 2023
In fact, not just Purola, but at least six other incidents in the last two weeks in the Garhwal region has played catalyst in already tense air.
Purola MLA Durgeshwar Lal said that “to the best of my knowledge, no Mahapanchayat will be held, though locals are agitated and they have right to raise voice against attempts to dent their cultural identity”.
Meanwhile, 52 former bureaucrats in a letter to state’s chief secretary SS Sandhu asked to ban the proposed mass gathering.
“It is a mystery to us as to why, despite information being available in the public domain, the criminal campaign against minority communities underway since May 26, 2023 has seen no action whatsoever being taken by the administration beyond the registration of a case against unknown persons after posters were put up,” the letter read.
The ruling BJP reacted strongly on the letter of retired bureaucrats. Senior party MLA Munna Singh Chauhan asked why the babus never reacted on the condition of Hindus in states like West Bengal and in Pakistan.
“If we will not care about our girls, then who else will?” Chauhan asked. The Congress, however, felt otherwise.
“The government must listen to the former bureaucrats. BJP must stay away from forcing political agenda ahead of the Lok Sabha polls,” said former minister Pritam Singh.
Earlier this week, Muslim representatives from BJP, Congress and BSP called on chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami requesting latter to “intervene”.