Three restaurants in Delhi were trolled and threatened on social media for serving food to Rohingya refugees. These restaurants served food to the refugees living in Jasola on the occasion of Navratri.
Owner of two restaurants Josh trolled
Shivam Sehgal, owner of two restaurants Josh, The High Energy Bar and Marketplace, told Quint: We often work with different NGOs to do something for the society. This time too we went there with good intentions to distribute food among the needy.
25-year-old Shivam said that trolling started as soon as the news agency ANI made a tweet. The tweet read, “Delhi: restaurant owners distributed food among Rohingya refugees at Navratri.”
Sehgal said, “Within three hours of the tweet there were about a thousand comments and 500 quote tweets, most of which were haters and were criticizing us for giving food to Rohingya Muslims.”
In the comment section of the ANI tweet, many people were seen talking about shutdown and boycott of these restaurants.
Shivam Sehgal said, “I started getting calls on the restaurant’s phone number as to why I decided to give food to illegal immigrants. I tried to understand them. Soon many people started giving us negative ratings on Zomato.”
The third restaurant trolled on social media was ‘Swagat’
Sehgal said, “We believe that there is no religion to eat and therefore gave food to those who struggle daily to live. But what we had done with the intention of giving something to the society, now it took the form of trolling And it is causing harm to our business.”
Sehgal was asked if he would take such an initiative again, so he said, “I will definitely because I believe it should be given to the needy.” But I would like to avoid social media attention next time because most of the stories are partially narrated and taken on social media in the wrong way. ”
He said that not only Muslims but people from all communities were included in the refugees. Shivam said, “And if there were only Muslims too, then what is the problem in giving food to the needy?”