Aishik Chanda By

HYDERABAD: Boycott calls flooded social media against Karachi Bakery outlets, alleging they were selling Israeli dates. The logic was buying them would mean support to Israel’s supposed oppression of Palestinian Muslims.

The buzz is some youths from the Old City, who had gone to the Bakery to buy dates on the occasion of Ramzan, found the Israeli connection and were enraged.

Karachi Bakery authorities said, “We buy dates from distributors in Hyderabad and Bengaluru, and are not sure whether they are imported from Israel or other West Asian countries.”

Meanwhile, the boycott call did not affect sales. “Ramzan is the month when there is maximum demand for dates and sales have peaked as usual,” they added.

Meanwhile, buyers of dates from the bakery are unperturbed by the boycott call. “Dates are made by Allah and grown on trees. It doesn’t matter which country they are grown in. This is a mischief by a handful of politicians, who want to get mileage. Next time, they may ask to boycott Iranian dates alleging that they are grown by Shias,” said a regular patron of Karachi Bakery.

“If they want to boycott Israel, why don’t they boycott all their products, including medicines and ventilators in hospitals? Many medicines manufactured by Israel are used by Hyderabadi Muslims,” said another resident.