If we had to pick two adjectives to describe this incident, they would have to be 'bigoted' and ‘bizarre’. A hotel in Bengaluru denied a room to a married couple on Tuesday for the unpardonable crime of following two different faiths.
Shafeek Subaida Hakkim and Divya DV, a married couple from Kerala who were in Bengaluru for some work, were refused a room at Olive Residency on Annipuram Main Road in Sudhama Nagar because he’s a Muslim and she’s a Hindu. Speaking to TNM, Shafeek says that the receptionist at the hotel refused to give them a room after he saw their ID cards.
Shafeek said:
“The receptionist just kept saying that since I am a Muslim and Divya is a Hindu, he could not give us a room together. It was already 7 am and Divya had an interview at 2 pm. We were helpless and shocked. We could not waste any more time arguing with the man and decided to look for a room in another hotel,” Shafeek says.
The receptionist, for his part, had a strange justification for not allowing an interfaith couple to stay at the property.
When TNM contacted the hotel, the receptionist accepted that he was the person who refused a room to the couple. He also said that he refused to give them a room because the man was a Muslim and the woman was a Hindu. The receptionist said:
He further added, “We don’t gives rooms to Muslims and Hindus who come together, because what if they go into the room and hang themselves […] Why do we need that trouble.”
The receptionist also said:
“Also they didn’t have much luggage. They just had one bag each. The man had one bag and the woman had one bag. They didn’t have any large suitcases. That’s why I got suspicious, and didn’t give them a room,” he claimed.
Watch the video here:
(This story was originally published in The News Minute. It has been republished with permission.)
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