Zomato row: Police sends notice to ‘biased’ customer

Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh police has taken cognisance of spurning of delivery boy of Zomato, the online food supplier, on ground of being non Hindu by a Jabalpur-based man.

A notice was being served to the controversial Zomato customer, Amit Shukla, by police asking him to explain his conduct, Jabalpur district superintendent of police (SP) Amit Singh told this newspaper on Thursday.

“Jabalpur is a communally sensitive area. Such action has the potential to disrupt communal harmony in the area. We are sending a notice the man asking him to explain his conduct.

However, we have not received any complaint in connection with the incident so far. We have taken suo moto cognizance of the Twitter post and decided to send notice”, Mr Singh added.

State BJP vice-president and sitting MLA Rameswar Sharma however defended Shukla, saying that, “If law cannot make singing of national anthem binding on us, then how can it catch on the people preferring their choice of courier of food. It is a question of religious sentiment”.

Shukla had triggered a controversy when he tagged Zomato in his Twitter post, saying that he cancelled the order, since “they allocated a non Hindu rider”.

“They said they cannot change the rider and can’t refund on cancellation, I said you can’t force me to take a delivery I don’t want…”, the Twitter post said.

Zomato replied saying that “Food cannot have a religion. It is a religion. We are proud of the idea of India …. and the diversity of our esteemed customers and partners. We are not sorry to lose any business that comes in way of our values”.

Shukla later tried to justify his action saying, “It is question of my personal religion. It is the holy month of Sravan for us. I am observing fast. I just asked them to change the delivery boy. I think I have not committed any crime”.