Notice Served to Zomato Customer for Cancelling Order Over Religion, Right-wing Group Comes to His Aid

Jabalpur: After a firestorm of a controversy erupted over a customer in Jabalpur, who cancelled his food order with Zomato on discovering that it was being delivered by a non-Hindu, police have started the process to serve a notice to Amit Shukla that will require him to sign a bond for keeping peace.

Jabalpur Superintendent of Police Amit Singh has initiated a probe into the incident and has ordered an ASP to probe the matter before the police takes action. He told News18 that both the parties would be heard before taking a lawful action in the case.

Singh added that Shukla’s tweet was against the spirit of the Constitution and had the potential to stoke communal disharmony in a town like Jabalpur.

In a separate action, Gorakhpur tehsildar, Pramod Chaturvedi, has served a notice to Shukla and has ordered him to furnish his reply in Tehsil office personally.

Meanwhile, a right wing group, the Hindu Seva Parishad, has come forward in support of Shukla and handed a memorandum to Singh, urging him to not initiate any action since he was just asserting his religious freedom.

Resting his case, the organisation’s district head Atul Jaswani, drew parallels to an incident when a Muslim customer declined to accept a Zomato order because it had served ‘Jhatka’ meat, the consumption of which is prohibited in Islam.

“On one hand, the company respects the sentiments of non-Hindus while on the other, it accuses Hindus of spreading communal hatred,” he said.

The Parishad has threatened to stage a ‘Jail Bharo’ andolan if Shukla is penalized for his actions.

Shukla has defended his stand and said he cancelled an order delivered by a non-Hindu because he was fasting for the month of Shrawan. He alleged that he tried to put forth a genuine concern through his tweet, but some ‘vested’ elements ‘twisted’ the entire incident.

The virtual world has seen a split over the incident with some backing the customer in preserving his food rights while others are lauding the Zomato’s stand against bigotry.

Minister for Urban Administration and Development Jaivardhan Singh also took to twitter to slam the customer, saying now those offering food are divided into Hindu and Muslims and called it a contagious attitude. “The politics has divided the hunger into Hindu and Muslim,” he said.