Uttam Nagar tense as street vendors live in fear

New Delhi: More than a month after a Bajrang Dal-led agitation in Uttam Nagar here against what the group claimed was a "redi jihad" where fruit sellers, mostly Muslims, had set up their shops in the area and who were chased away for being "anti-social elements", several street vendors in the area have been living in fear of the communal tension that the incident sparked.

Right outside the Uttam Nagar East Metro Station, one can find a beeline of fruit and vegetable vendors trying to sell their goods - amid the fear that they will be chased away again.

Most of them have shifted from the road across the metro station, and now "no one dares to set up their shop on that road".

Sharafat Ali, a street vendor who earlier used to set up shop across the road, said that he was at his home when the incident which sparked the dharna took place. "A 25-year-old vegetable vendor had set up his stall near a shop, but there was a physical scuffle between him and the shop owner and he was accused of assault and looting the latter's property," he said, adding that following this, an order was issued and the market stakeholders along with close to 100 Bajrang Dal members came and chased all the street vendors away.

"It happened because the street vendor was a Muslim...they only tried to communalise the incident when there was no need for it...I have set up my stall here for 8 years and my fellow Hindu vendors are like my brothers, there has been no enmity between us ever…," he told Millennium Post. Ali added that there have been incidents where customers check his religion before buying goods from him.

Around a km away, in the bylanes of the Milap Nagar Market, is a couple — Israel Khan (45) and Farzana (40), squatting beside their apple stall, who said that members of the Dal had overturned their stall and allegedly thrashed Khan with sticks. "I quickly went inside my shop and pulled down the shutters...my wife, me, and three other family members were inside, following which we called the police and they came and dispersed them," Khan recalled.

"They also lobbed a tear-gas on the top of our shop following which smoke gathered inside...we told them just give us 5 minutes and we'll pack our fruits and leave but they didn't listen to us…most fruit sellers here are Muslims...now we shut shop around 4 PM in fear that we'll be chased away by police," Farzana said.

A poster reading "Sabhi Hinduo se nivedan hai ki Uttam Nagar shetra ke kisi bhi asamajik fruit redi valo se kisi prakar ki kharidari na kare" was purportedly pasted all across the area by the Bajrang Dal, the locals said.

Raju, another street vendor, mentioned another incident where a Muslim man who had just bought a stall there had been chased away by members of Bajrang Dal. "They claimed no Muslim can open a shop there... it's being unnecessarily communalised," he stated.

One Rizwan, who vendors claim was a fruit seller caught in the crossfire, was assaulted reportedly by Bajrang Dal members during the agitation. A senior police officer said that an FIR was registered at the time under sections of assault but denied any communal intent behind it.

Meanwhile, Lalit Khurana, President of the Milap Nagar Market Association, claimed that the issue is not about religion but about street vendors who have been creating trouble for shopkeepers in the area by indulging in crime and encroaching space outside their shops.