Earlier this month, a video of a Muslim man allegedly spitting in the plate of food had rekindled the debate surrounding the unhygienic practices adopted by some Muslim cooks while preparing food. After the video went viral on social media, Christian groups in Kerala reportedly launched a campaign to identify hotels owned by non-Muslims and urged their followers to visit only these hotels for ‘spit-free food’.
Social media pages of Christian groups such as ‘Soldiers of Cross’ shared lists of Kerala hotels that served “spit-free food”. These lists included hotels owned by Hindus or Christians in different districts across the state that they call “spit-free hotels”.
A report published by The News Minute said both Hindu and Christian Groups have been leading the campaign against Muslim hotel-owners. However, OpIndia could not independently verify if Hindu groups were also involved in creating the awareness of the menace that is being reported from various parts of the country.
‘Soldiers of Cross’, a Christian Group, has been sharing a district-wise list of Hindu-Christian owned hotels that they assert are ‘spit and mucus’ free. The lists are being widely circulated on Facebook, Whatsapp groups, and other social media platforms, where users are exhorting others of patronising only those restaurants that follow higher standards of hygiene practices as against those who might be serving their patrons with spit food.
As a part of its campaign to create awareness among patrons, the group is also asking people to avoid hotels and restaurants with ‘halal’ signboards, asserting that ‘spit food’ is being served there.
Increasing instances of Muslim cooks found allegedly spitting in food
The “spit-free” food campaign was launched in the wake of a viral video that showed a Muslim man allegedly spitting in food while preparing it. Habitual fake news peddler and an apologist for Islamists, Alt News defended the perverse practice by proffering a bizarre argument in its defence. In the article, Alt News tried to justify the act of ‘spitting’ by passing it off as blowing air onto food.
Notably, this is not the first time that Muslim cooks have been under the spotlight for spitting or applying saliva while preparing food. There have umpteen videos shot in different parts of the country where Muslim cooks are seen spitting in the food. On November 15, just a week after the aforementioned video started doing the rounds on the internet, another video of a cook—from a Muslim hotel in Ghaziabad—spitting on the dough before preparing rotis went viral on social media.
In October 2021, a similar video had surfaced on social media in which a man was seen spitting on roti at a Dhaba in Ghaziabad. The accused arrested in the case was identified as Tamizuddin. Hindu Raksha Dal had filed a complaint in the matter. The video was of Chicken Point in Panchvati Ahimsa Vatika market at Bhatia Mod. Not only several cases of cooks spitting on roti have emerged in recent times but incidents of spitting had come to light while packing food items as well.
In March 2021, the Ghaziabad police arrested one Mohammad Mohsin after a video of him making rotis while spitting on them at an engagement ceremony went viral on the microblogging site. The incident purportedly took place on March 11 in the Bhojpur area of Ghaziabad district. The cook identified as Mohammad Mohsin in seen making rotis and spitting on them.
In the last week of March, another man named Mohammad Khalik was arrested from the national capital after a video of him spitting on the dough while preparing rotis in a tandoor had gone viral on the internet. The Delhi Police took cognisance of the viral video and arrested the cook named Mohammad Khalik.
In yet another case of a cook spitting on rotis from March 2021, Delhi Police arrested two persons named Mohammad Ibrahim and Anwar after a video of them applying saliva on dough of the rotis had gone viral on the internet. In the video that had gone viral, one of the two men was seen spitting on the rotis before putting them in a tandoor. It was then reported that the video was from a hotel in Seelampur in Delhi.
