Ravi Ranjan Kumar
The National Commission for Women has taken cognizance of an incident happened at one of the South Delhi’s restaurant. The whole incident involved a woman where she was denied entry at the South Delhi restaurant in Ansal Plaza. The reason behind the denial of entry was that she was wearing a saree.
On Thursday, the chairperson of the National Commission for Women wrote to the Commissioner of Police, Delhi to investigate the incident. She asked the Commissioner to take strict action against the restaurant if any allegations leveled are true. Every action related to the incident taken by the police must converse to the NCW at the earliest.
NCW also wrote to the marketing as well as PR director of the restaurant, Aquila, to present himself for the hearing on September 28 at 12.30 pm along with supporting documents as well as an explanation.
‘Supposedly, the restaurant, Aquila’s dress code policy for guests is only smart casuals. And as per the restaurant and its staff, saree doesn’t count as smart casuals,’ according to the NCW statement. They also added, ‘The Commission condemns the haphazard and inexplicable behavior of this South Delhi restaurant staff as well as its policies.’
The woman, Anita Choudhary who faced this whole incident, posted a video on her social media platform on 19th September 2021. She posted, ‘Women wearing saree is not allowed at Aquila restaurant at Ansal Plaza. According to the restaurant’s policy saree is not counted as a smart outfit. What is the concrete definition of smart attire? Please let me know.’ The video posted by her shows a staff member saying, ‘We have a dress code of smart casuals and saree does not include under the category of smart casuals.’ Further, she said, ‘I have been embarrassed like this before in my life. I feel humiliated and hurt.’ Seeing the video posted by Choudhary, many people retweeted it and shown their anger towards the high-end restaurant of Delhi.
Also, after the video went viral on various social media platforms, the high-end restaurant faced a lot of criticism. On Wednesday this week, the restaurant issued a statement on Instagram telling their side of the story, ‘At Aquila, we believe in glorifying our Indian community. Our restaurant has always welcomed our guests in every type of dress code, be it modern or traditional.’ The restaurant also claimed that the incident or video posted is just 10 seconds part of their one-hour conversation. The incident later came to them as a shock as the woman slapped one of the managers of their restaurant.’ Further, they added, ‘To tackle the entire situation and request the guest to leave, one of their staff members said that saree is not a part of their dress code.’ The restaurant and its whole team later apologized for the statement made by them.
On Thursday this week, ABVP members held a riot inside the Ansal Plaza. They further asked the restaurant’s management to apologize for the incident.
