A farmer named Babu Khan had gone on Kanwar Yatra.

MEERUT: A Muslim man in a Baghpat village was allegedly attacked by members of his own community when he went to the local mosque to offer namaz late on Friday night. His crime: he had participated in the Kanwar Yatra and had even brought a kanwar containing Ganga water from Haridwar .The incident happened in Ranchhad village under Binauli police station, from where a farmer named Babu Khan had gone on Kanwar Yatra. After he returned on Thursday, a section of his own community turned against him. This reached a flashpoint on Friday night when he went to the mosque. He was allegedly abused, attacked and driven away.Khan told TOI on Saturday, “My purpose was to just live the experience of a Kanwar Yatra pilgrim, to understand what they go through in this strenuous exercise of walking all the way from Haridwar carrying all that water. I even went to Pura Mahadev Temple in Baghpat and offered Ganga water there. I don’t see anything wrong in it. I am still a devout Muslim, but some people abused me and on Friday night tried to attack me, but I slipped away.”However, the opposing group defended its decision not to allow Khan to enter the mosque and provided an altogether different reason for their opposition. “Ideally we do not approve of what he has done. But the matter was not as big as it has been made out to be. We confronted him and he became abusive. And the primary reason for stopping him was because he was drunk. He has added the Kanwar Yatra angle only to exaggerate things to gain sympathy,” said Haroon Ahmad, a resident of the village.Now Devender Singh, husband of the village pradhan Sharmili Devi has stepped in and is trying to arrive at a compromise between Babu Khan and the rest of his community. “The matter definitely pertains to religion and some people are irked by Khan bringing a kanwar and eventually going to a temple. We are trying to arrive at a compromise by initiating discussion between both sides, although a police complaint has been given to Binoli police station as a precautionary measure.”Reacting on the issue, senior cleric and Sheher Qazi of Meerut, Qazi Zainus Sajidin told TOI, “It is Khan’s personal choice but there are certain rules and regulations that bind the follower of a certain faith towards that particular religion. For instance in Islam, worshipping multiple gods is not permitted. Similarly, he is not given permission to bow his head in front of any other god. And if he is doing something of that sort, his faith in his own religion becomes doubtful and that definitely irks others who are of his own community because somewhere he is setting a precedent which is not acceptable in the eyes of that faith.”