An Uttar Pradesh resident claiming to be a sadhu who has been on a mission to “cleanse the Kanwar Yatra routes of non-Sanatanis” and “raiding” shops and harassing their owners and staff without any fear of consequences has now found a high-tech accoutrement — the Yogi Adityanath government’s special QR code.

Swami Yashveer Maharaj, who hails from Muzaffarnagar, and his companions on Wednesday visited shops and dhabas along the Kanwar Yatra route in Ghaziabad’s Mohan Nagar and scanned the QR codes, which provide identity details of the owners and employees. They put up pictures of the Hindu god Varaha and also the bhagwa (saffron flag) at the shops.

"I am not conducting any raid, but I am giving the shopkeepers a picture of Varaha and also installing the Hindu flag with ‘Om’ written on it. It is my mission to guide the kanwariyas on where they should take their meals or buy anything during the Yatra,” Yashveer told reporters.

"I'll not allow any activities against Sanatan Dharma and will continue to purify the Kanwar routes," added Yashveer, who receives security cover from the state government in the form of two constables.

The Uttar Pradesh government’s Food Safety and Drug Administration has asked dhabas and shops on the Kanwar Yatra routes to put up the registered names of their facilities on boards along with a special QR code allotted to them.

Ostensibly, the QR code aims at quality control: Customers can use it to give feedback or lodge complaints about the food or the service, uploading pictures as evidence. However, the QR code also reveals the name of the owner and, therefore, their religion.

The police are not known to have taken any action against Yashveer beyond serving notices on some of his followers over the allegations and issuing routine statements on the force’s commitment to protect people from harassment.

Satyanarayan Prajapati, the superintendent of police of Muzaffarnagar, denied that shopkeepers along the Kanwar Yatra routes had been told to reveal their identity. “There are forces along the routes to maintain law and order. Nobody is asking for the identity of dhaba owners. Those who created trouble previously have been warned,” he said.

However, Dheeraj Malik, a dhaba owner in Muzaffarnagar’s Dalauda, alleged that some kanwariyas had ransacked his facility. "Four kanwariyas from Haryana asked for chapati, rice, dal and vegetables, but started breaking chairs after having food. They said there was onion in the vegetables, which they are not supposed to eat during the month of Shravan. They should have told us before that they won’t have onion instead of creating a scene after having food,” he said.

Prajapati, the SP, said: “There was some dispute over onions in food. The police reached the spot and controlled the situation.”

S.R. Hassan, former Samajwadi MP of Moradabad, said some people were “behaving like terrorists” and the state government and its police were “protecting them”.

In Meerut on Tuesday to review the situation before the Kanwar Yatra officially starts on July 11, Uttar Pradesh director-general of police Rajiv Krishna had said the force was “prepared to maintain peace along the routes”.

“Nobody except officers of the food safety department is allowed to check or ask the identity of dhaba owners on the Kanwar Yatra routes. We’ll take action against any group or organisation which violates the rule,” he said.

Yashveer started conducting “raids” on dhabas along the Kanwar Yatra routes last week and his supporters attacked some Muslim shopkeepers on the charge that they had put up the names and pictures of Hindu deities at their facilities.

They allegedly stripped a dhaba worker to ascertain his religion because they believed he was a Muslim and lied to them that he was a Hindu.