Ghaziabad: Right-wing group shuts down KFC store in honour of Sawan, Kanwar Yatra

In what has become a seasonal blend of spiritual fervour and street-level thuggery, members of a right-wing Hindu group allegedly shut down a KFC outlet in Ghaziabad’s Vasundhara area on Thursday, 17 July. Their objection? The sale of meat during Sawan, the month of Lord Shiva and the Kanwar Yatra, during which even multinational fried chicken chains are apparently expected to seek religious clearance before operating.

Despite no formal ban on non-vegetarian food in the region, the group marched into the outlet, chanting "Bharat Mata ki jai" and "jai Shri Ram", and forcibly pulled down the shutters. The moment, naturally, was captured on video and widely shared — because no modern pilgrimage is complete without content creation.

"An incident came to our notice on 17 July where some individuals created a ruckus at a food outlet and tried to close it down. Police immediately reached the spot, dispersed them, and ensured the smooth operation of the food outlet," confirmed assistant commissioner of police Abhishek Srivastav.

"A case has already been registered at the Indirapuram police station… All these individuals are being identified, and further action will be taken based on facts," he added. Though given recent precedent, “further action” might just involve a friendly warning and a glass of lassi.

This is only the latest entry in the expanding anthology of Kanwar Yatra chaos. In Meerut earlier this week, kanwariyas vandalised a car after it “got too close” to their procession — because proximity, apparently, is provocation. In Muzaffarnagar, another group smashed shopfronts and assaulted a man for allegedly playing "inappropriate" music near a kanwar camp.

काशी विश्वनाथ मंदिर में पूजा-अर्चना के लिए कतार में खड़े श्रद्धालुओं पर जिला प्रशासन की ओर से फूल बरसाए गए।

अच्छी बात है लेकिन सवाल ये है कि क्या अब सरकारी अधिकारियों के यही काम रह गए हैं??
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.#UttarPradesh #kanwaryatra #viralvideo pic.twitter.com/FwE1EvDVVm

— Article19 India (@Article19_India) July 14, 2025

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In 2022, footage from Bulandshahr showed a mob of yatris wrecking a car with tridents and sticks while police looked on passively, presumably making sure no one hurt themselves during the righteous beatdown.

Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath continues to roll out the saffron carpet. This year, his government deployed over 20,000 police personnel across the state, not so much to regulate yatri behaviour as to apparently facilitate it — providing water, medical aid, and even mobile charging stations.

On Friday itself, several news channels aired an Adityanath speech in which he hit out at those putting "devoted, hard-working kanwar yatris on media trial" and "daring to call them rioters, even terrorists", and said they were insulting the faith of these devotees of Lord Shiva.

Speaking in support of Shiva devotees at a seminar on tribal icon Birsa Munda, he said those who seek to defame the kanwar yatris are the same people who tried to separate the tribal community from India, without providing anything by way of support for this startling assertion.

Traffic across towns and cities is routinely halted to make way for DJ trucks blasting techno remixes of Shiva bhajans, while motorbike convoys perform stunts on highways with all the grace of a Monster Energy commercial gone rogue.

The Adityanath administration has also instructed officials to treat kanwariyas “with respect” and ensure an “uninterrupted experience”. For everyone else — commuters, shopkeepers, and restaurant staff — the expectation seems to be: smile, surrender, and stay vegetarian.

In today’s Uttar Pradesh, religious devotion has been repackaged as an entitlement to dominate public space, intimidate businesses, and, when the mood strikes, smash up a Hyundai or two. Perhaps next year, instead of bothering with law enforcement, local authorities can just hand out kanwar kits: saffron flags, a Bluetooth speaker, and immunity from prosecution.

After all, nothing says faith like fried chicken-related riots.

With PTI inputs