A purported video of a group of 'Kanwariyas', a name given to devotees who undertake the annual Hindu pilgrimage 'Kanwar Yatra', vandalising a car with seemingly Muslim occupants inside is going viral on social media, with the claims that the incident took place in Uttar Pradesh's Meerut.
While Outlook could not independently verify the authenticity of the video, the clip shows Kanwariyas violently smashing the car with rods and an occupant managing to get out of the car to escape the assault.
Unconfirmed reports said that the incident took place after the Kanwariyas claimed that the driver of the car damaged their 'Kanwar' after a collision. Multiple videos of the said incident have surfaced on social media, one of which shows an occupant running for his life and another shows the man with torn clothes, surrounded by the Kanwariyas who attacked the vehicle.
One of the videos shows the Kanwariyas raising slogans around the damaged car.
A statement from the Uttar Pradesh Police is awaited on the incident.
'Kanwar' refers to a single pole (usually made of bamboo) with two roughly equal loads of pots carrying holy water fastened or dangling from opposite ends. The Kanwar traditionally is carried by balancing the middle of the pole on one or both shoulders, however, devotees carry out huge processions also. Kanwar-carrying pilgrims, called Kanwariyas, carry covered water-pots in Kanwars slung across their shoulders, ensuring that the pots do not touch the ground at any point during their pilgrimage.
E-Rickshaw Attacked
In another incident, over a dozen Kanwariyas were booked for allegedly assaulting the driver of an e-rickshaw and damaging the vehicle with bamboo sticks in Haridwar district in the presence of policemen, officials said on Wednesday.
The incident occurred on Tuesday afternoon near a mill in the Libberhedi area along the Delhi highway in Manglaur, they said.
The group of Kanwariyas attacked the e-rickshaw driver named Sanjay Kumar and his vehicle as he had allegedly hit one of them, who left unharmed. In a viral video, a group of about a dozen Kanwariyas can be seen attacking the e-rickshaw with bamboo sticks while the policemen try to pacify them.
The Kanwar Yatra is an annual pilgrimage of devotees of Shiva, known as Kanwariyas or "Bhole". The Kanwariyas travel to Haridwar, Gaumukh and Gangotri in Uttarakhand and Ajgaibinath, Sultanganj in Bhagalpur, Bihar to collect holy waters of the Ganges and then bring it back on foot to their hometowns where they offer the water to Shivlings on Maha Shivratri, which is on August 2 this year.
