“Select a Hindu delivery person,” customer tells Swiggy, refuses to accept food delivered by Muslim man

A Swiggy customer in Hyderabad refused to receive his food order just because the delivery executive assigned to him was a Muslim, The Hindustan Times reported.

The incident took place on Monday night but it surfaced only when the delivery executive Mudassir Omar filed a complaint in the Shalibanda police station on Wednesday. The police is examining the whole incident before it could register a case. The food delivery company Swiggy has not reacted yet.

According to the report in The Hindustan Times, Ajay Kumar, the customer who ordered using the Swiggy app gave specific instructions to Swiggy, saying, “Very less spicy. And, please select a Hindu delivery person. All ratings will be based on this.”

Mudassir said that Ajay was upset when he got to know he was a Muslim. “He asked my name and when I revealed my identity, he was angry. He shouted at me for not honouring his preferences. He said he was rejecting the delivery because I was a Muslim,” Mudassir said.

Ajay called the Swiggy customer centre to complain about the problem and later picked up an argument. In the recording, Ajay can be heard saying that he specifically wanted a Hindu delivery executive for delivery of his food. He wanted to cancel the order and his money refunded.

The customer care executive told him that a cancellation fee of ₹95 will be charged and the remaining amount will be credited to his account. Ajay said that he doesn’t mind losing money, but he would not accept the food, The Hindustan Times reported

Mudassir who is a post-graduate student in Science said Swiggy does not choose delivery executive by religion, the delivery executives are chosen automatically by the system. “It was automatically assigned to me by the system which follows the GPS. Since I stay nearby, the order was assigned to me,” he said.

In August, a person named Amit Shukla in Jabalpur also cancelled his food order because the food delivery executive was a Muslim. This had drawn a lot of flak from the netizens who criticised Amit Shukla for being such a bigot. Zomato had stuck to its decision did not change the delivery boy.