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'Appalling': Telangana minister KTR as couple alleges racism at Ikea store
The Telangana minister sought apology from the Swedish ready-to-assemble furniture brand IKEA.
Telangana minister KT Rama Rao on Monday sought apology from multinational ready-to-assemble furniture brand IKEA amid allegations of a racist incident at a Hyderabad store. The Telangana minister was responding to a tweet posted by Nitin Sethi, a journalist.
Alleging racism, Sethi wrote in his post: "Only my wife, from Manipur got frisked for goods she bought. No one else before us. And then all supervisory staff came to defend the racism. Great show from an 'international store'. Cheers to another usual day. (sic)”.
He further tweeted that the "person who checked my wife's shopping bags, even sniggered that we had bought everything, didn't even care to reply why we were singled out". "And the supervisors said - ‘yeah call police if you want, we will deal’. And it didn't end there. Daily racism that our people face," he wrote.
The posts elicited a response from Ikea, which said that "customers who self-checkout are requested for a final check before leaving the store to ensure the billing is correct and customers do not face any problems regarding double charging, repeat scanning of products".
Sethi, however, did not agree with the explanation, and pointed out that the staff "passed sarcastic comments and then its supervisors (muscle, security officials) told us off and dealt on side with the police only to ensure we do not face problems of double charging!"
The matter has further heated with KT Rama Rao, son of chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao, now stepping in. He said the incident was “appalling and absolutely unacceptable”. “Please ensure a proper apology is issued & more importantly educate, sensitise & train your staff to respect all your customers graciously,” he tweeted.
