Dhruv Ruparel, president of the Petrol Dealers Association of Pune, told The Indian Express that petrol companies direct petrol pumps to celebrate festivals and it is a regular practice.
A petrol pump owner in Pune’s Bhavani Peth area was threatened by members of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal over his employees donning Christmas hats on December 23.
Kavya Ladkat, owner of the HPCL petrol pump in Bhavani Peth, registered a complaint at the Khadak police station, where a non-cognizable offence under Section 315(2) (criminal intimidation) of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita was registered against one Vijay Kamble. The incident comes in the wake of multiple attacks and acts of vandalisms against Christmas decorations and celebrations across cities.
Speaking to The Indian Express, Ladkat said her manager got a call on Tuesday, demanding that the Christmas caps worn by their employees were not acceptable and should be removed as soon as possible. “Then the man came with two to three men and started threatening me. They said ‘only Hindu dharm should be followed and these hats should be removed’ and ‘you should stay within the law’. After I started recording a video, he backed off,” she said.
“He told me that if we have put caps on Christmas, then we must also put phetas on padva (New Year). I told him, ‘Okay, we will wear phetas (on New Year) and skullcaps on Eid. I was speaking about humanity. Then, I called the police for protection and filed a complaint to prevent any such thing from happening in the future. The police did not file an FIR but only a non-recognisable offence,” added Ladkat.
A video of the incident shared by Ladkat shows a group of men saying, “Here we are trying to prevent religious conversion and here you are…” and “Look at what happened in Bangladesh”.
Shashikant Chavan, inspector at Khadak police station said, “We have registered a non-cognizable offence and taken preventive action.”
Kamble, who said he is the ward minister of VHP, denied threatening the pump owner. “We got a complaint from employees that they were being forced to wear Christmas hats so we went there to speak about it. We were not able to say anything and the lady there started recording us.”