Things have gone from bad to worse for Jabalpur resident Amit Shukla, who is currently in the middle of controversy for taking offence over Zomato sending a “non-Hindu” delivery boy for delivering his order. After creating storm on social media, the man has landed in more trouble following Madhya Pradesh Police’s decision to send him a notice over the incident.
Speaking over the issue to Hindustan Times, Amit Singh, superintendent of police in Jabalpur, said, “We are going to send a notice to the man to explain his conduct. If it is true, it amounts to hurting religious sentiments of people. This is a crime.”
According to the SP, no one has lodged a complaint but the police has taken suo moto notice of the Twitter post and has decided to send a notice.
On Tuesday night in a Twitter post, Shukla tagged Zomato and said he had cancelled his order as “they allocated a non-Hindu rider”. “They said they can’t change rider and can’t refund on cancellation, I said you can’t force me to take a delivery I don’t want…” he tweeted.
Zomato replied saying that “food doesn’t have a religion. It is a religion”. The founder of the food deliver company, Deepinder Goyal tweeted, “We are proud of the idea of India - and the diversity of our esteemed customers and partners. We aren’t sorry to lose any business that comes in the way of our values.”
After criticism over his Twitter post, Amit Shukla justified his action and said, “It’s a question of my personal religion. They should honour it. It is the holy month of Shravan for us. I am observing fast. That’s why I ordered the food from a vegetarian restaurant. I just made a request to Zomato to change the delivery boy but they didn’t do. I don’t think, I have committed any crime.”
On Wednesday, the food delivery company issued a statement in which it defended its policy of using the halal tag on its platform. In the statement titled “food, religion and halal”, Zomato claimed that it respects all religions and strives to provide various kinds of food like - Jain, Vegan and Navratra thalis.
It added that the halal tag which appears on its platform is a result of restaurants seeking that distinction and Zomato is not involved in that process. The note also said that restaurants serving meat obtain halal certification from an all-India body.
