Less than a month after opening its first store in India, Ikea (a Swedish multinational group that specialises in home furniture) is in the news for the wrong reason. A customer who visited its restaurant in Hyderabad on Friday has complained that he found a worm in his veg biryani.

The customer, Abeed Mohammad, besides complaining about this to the store management and municipal authorities, also raised the issue on Twitter.

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Today I found a caterpillar in my veg biryani," he said in his tweet, which tagged official handles of city police and other authorities.

In its preliminary inquiry, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) has imposed a fine of Rs 10,000 fine on Ikea. This was after the civic body's food safety officer, food inspector of special zone, along with assistant medical officer of health, and other officials inspected the restaurant and collected food samples for bacteriological analysis.

Meanwhile, Ikea has tendered an apology and promised that it will look into the matter.

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"We regret the incident and apologise to our customer for the unfortunate experience," Ikea said in a statement.

The management said they would like to assure the customer and others that the matter is being investigated to assess what happened and take immediate corrective action.

"At Ikea, we have the strictest guidelines when it comes to food safety and quality as customers' health and safety are something we care about deeply," the statement said.

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