Recently a customer of Zomato refused to accept the delivery of food by a ‘non-Hindu’ delivery man. The story goes by that Faiyaz, a food delivery executive with Zomato, was assigned the task of completing an order placed by Amit Shukla, a resident of Jabalpur. But Amit upfrontly refused to accept the delivery as the delivery boy was non- Hindu. It’s hard to believe that someone who uses 21st century technologies can think like this. This sort of an action is certainly not accepted from anyone, be it from any religion. We live in a secular country, a country which respects all religions and nobody should forget this.
A Twitter user, Amit Shukla, posted screenshots of his conversation with Zomato, where he expressed his anger over the issue.
But what has won our hearts is the decision taken by the company and this is how the Zomato and its Founder, Mr. Deepinder Goyal, replied,
Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah tweeted, ‘Respect. I love your app. Thank you for giving me a reason to admire the company behind it’.
Former Chief Election Commissioner S Y Quraishi tweeted: “Salute Deepinder Goyal! You are the real face of India! Proud of you.”
Senior politician P. Chidambaram said, I have not ordered food so far, but I think I will do so now from Zomato.
Uber Eats too came in full support of Zomato and posted this tweet…
Since being shared, Zomato’s tweet has collected over 26,000 ‘likes’ and more than 10,000 retweets. The internet is also divided in its opinion of supporting Amit Shukla – both kinds of hashtags – #IStandWithAmit and #IDontStandWithAmit are trending. People have also started #ZomatoUninstalled , #boycottzomato and #BoycottUberEats on social media
Meanwhile a notice has been issued to Amit Shukla after the incidence. Amit Singh, Superintendent of Police, Jabalpur, told news agency ANI “We have issued a notice. It will be served to Amit Shukla. He’ll be warned, if he tweets anything which is against the ideals of the Constitution, action will be taken; he is on surveillance”. Police also sought a written undertaking from Amit Shukla that he would not spread religious hatred.
The Mumbai Dabbawala Association too came in support of Zomato and has a very apt answer to this kind of hatred. Subhash Talekar, spokesperson of the 5,000-member dabbawala association, said “We condemn his act of canceling order just because the delivery boy belonged to another religion. The delivery person may be Hindu or Muslim, he does the job for livelihood. Such workers do not have religion”.
