india

Updated: Jun 08, 2020 01:12 IST

The police in Jabalpur on Thursday sought a written undertaking from Zomato customer Amit Shukla that he would not spread religious hatred.

Faiyaz, a food delivery executive with Zomato, was assigned the task of completing an order placed by Shukla. However, Shukla had tweeted on Wednesday that he cancelled his food order on Zomato because the delivery man was not a Hindu.

“Just cancelled an order on @ZomatoIN they allocated a non Hindu rider for my food 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 don’t refund just cancel,” Shukla tweeted.

Also watch:‘Maybe because I’m a Muslim...’: Zomato rider recounts ordeal

The company stood its ground and refused to change the delivery executive. “Food doesn’t have a religion. It is a religion,” the company tweeted in response to the customer’s request for change of the rider.

Shukla’s tweet and the company’s response that “food has no religion” went viral. A notice was issued to him on Thursday as “preventive action”, Jabalpur police said.

Also read: Zomato’s mic drop: The revolution will be tweeted and home-delivered

On Wednesday, narrating the sequence of events, Faiyaz said, “I called the person who had placed the order to know the location of his house. But he said he had cancelled the order. Asked about the customer’s refusal to take delivery from him, the Zomato executive admitted he felt hurt over whatever happened.

On the other hand, Shukla appeared unrepentant. “Do my freedom of expression and religion not fall under the idea of India?” he said when a news channel asked him about his reaction to Zomatos reply to his request to change the rider.

“At present, the pious month of Shravan is going on and it is a matter of my personal choice,” Shukla said, justifying his stand.

Zomato founder Deepinder Goyal echoed his company’s stand with a firm message. “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,” he tweeted.