After protest in Gurgaon: Chicken shop shut over ‘Hindu bhai’ in its name

“There was some tension in the area over the hoarding, but that was defused by the police team from the Sector 10A police station, which reached the spot soon after,” said Subhash Boken, PRO of Gurgaon Police.

An outfit said the hoarding was meant to insult the Hindu community.

A hoarding put up at a chicken shop in Gurgaon’s Sector 37 became a cause of conflict on Thursday evening, when representatives of some Hindu outfits arrived at the spot and demanded that it be taken down. Protesters had taken exception to the establishment’s name — ‘Hindu Bhai Chicken Shop’.

They also alleged that although the owner’s name on the hoarding was ‘Babu Lal’, a search of the shop’s phone number on the app, Truecaller, indicated that it belonged to “a Muslim going by the name of Arif”.

“The name written on the board was Hindu Bhai Chicken Shop, but when we looked into the matter, we found that the owner actually belongs to another religion and hails from Rajasthan. It seems the name of our religion was included in the hoarding only to insult us,” claimed Rajiv Mittal, national general secretary of the Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Kranti Dal, which is among the groups operating under the banner of Sanyukt Hindu Sangharsh Samiti.

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“We alerted police about this Thursday evening and the board was taken down. When we reached the spot, the shop was open, but after we confronted them about the hoarding, the owner and other men fled,” he claimed.

Police confirmed the incident, but said no case has been registered in the matter, which “appears to have been resolved as of now”.

“There was some tension in the area over the hoarding, but that was defused by the police team from the Sector 10A police station, which reached the spot soon after,” said Subhash Boken, PRO of Gurgaon Police.

“No case has been registered in the matter. Hindu outfits protested against the hoarding, which has been removed. We tried to contact the owner of the shop, but the mobile number on the hoarding was turned off. Our probe indicates the shop has been closed for the last two months,” he said.

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The incident comes less than two weeks before Navratri, a period during which Gurgaon has seen tension over meat and chicken shops, with Hindu outfits in the past demanding these remain closed.

In some instances, they have also been known to take matters into their own hands.

Earlier this week, state-level office bearers of the Hindu Sena had held a press conference, demanding that all meat shops in the state remain closed during Navratri.

“Just like on the directions of Urban Local Bodies Minister Kavita Jain, all meat shops and slaughter houses in the state remain closed for Mahavir Jayanti, we demand that similar directions be issued to close all meat shops in Haryana during Navratri,” Hindu Sena’s Haryana state president Ritu Raj said.

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“We will hand a memorandum to the Haryana government with regard to these demands, but if the government does not take measures to this effect, we will have to take to the streets ourselves and get the shops closed personally,” he said.