A person in Hyderabad allegedly refused to accept the food delivery because the delivery executive assigned to him was a Muslim.

The person had placed an order on the online food delivery platform – Swiggy and mentioned “select Hindu delivery boy” in the instructions.

The incident came to light when the delivery executive Mudassir Omar (32) complained about Shalibanda police station on October 23. The cops are examing the complaint and are yet to register a case, reported Hindustan Times.

On October 21, Ajay Kumar, from Aliabad area in the city, ordered Chicken-65, from Grand Bawarchi restaurant at Falaknuma, through Swiggy and made an online payment. While making the order, in the preference column, Ajay wrote, “Very less spicy. And, please select Hindu delivery person. All ratings will be based on this.”

When Mudassir arrived at the nearby location and called Ajay to instruct him on the exact location, Ajay asked the delivery boy his religion. Enraged with the religion of the delivery executive, Ajay refused to accept the order. “He shouted at me for not honouring his preferences. He said he was rejecting the delivery because I was a Muslim,” Mudassir said.

Ajay even reached out to the customer centre of Swiggy and got himself involved in a squabble with a customer care executive. Ajay told the customer care executive that he will not accept food from a Muslim. He also demanded his money to be refunded.

The customer care responded by saying that Ajay will have to incur a cancellation fee of Rs 95, and the rest will be credited to his account within the next five to seven days. Ajay said he is ok with losing the money, but will never accept food delivered by a Muslim.

Mudassir, who is a post-graduate student in Science, said Swiggy never assigns delivery executive based on their religious faith. He said, since he was near the particular restaurant, he was assigned with the order to deliver.

Mudassir a day later reached out to the president of political party Majlis Bachao Threek (MBT), Amzadullah Khan. He questioned how can food be rejected based on religion and said that the restaurant from where the food was ordered belonged to a Muslim.

He also said he had advised Swiggy to file a complaint against the person for creating differences between Hindus and Muslims in Telangana.

When The Logical Indian reached out to Swiggy for a comment, the company said, “At Swiggy, we embrace diversity and respect different points of view. Every order is automatically assigned to delivery executives based on their location, availability, etc. and not based on individual preferences. As an organization, we do not discriminate between our partners and customers on any grounds.”

The Logical Indian Take

Food has no religion. The delivery executive’s religious faith should never become a bone of contention. India which is globally known for its diverse culture, where Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Parsi, Christian all live in harmony, an incident like this comes as a blot on India’s fabric of multiculturalism.

This is second such incident which has come to light, where a customer refused to collect their order, just because a Muslim boy made the delivery. In July, Amit Shukla who had placed an order on Zomato, cancelled the order because the delivery boy was a Muslim. Shukla took to Twitter to express his dissent. However, the company stood on its ground and refused to change its delivery executive.

Also Read: Man Cancels Zomato Order Assigned To Non-Hindu Rider; Zomato Comes Up With An Epic Reply