AsiaNet-Pakistan Premier Editorial Content and Press Release Distribution Service
New Delhi, February 16, 2020 (PPI-OT):A Kashmiri Muslim student has said that an OYO Room in North Delhi, which he had booked for his father and sister, stopped him from checking in because of his being Kashmiri origin. Nauman Rafiq, a student at Delhi University’s Law Faculty, had booked a double occupancy room at OYO Aasha Residency in Vijay Nagar for February 15-17.
Rafiq told media that when he arrived to check, today, the hotel staff asked him where his ID was from, and denied him the room after he said it was from Jammu and Kashmir. “Before even looking at my ID, they asked me where it was from, so I said Jammu and Kashmir. Then they told me ‘we don’t allow people from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and JandK in our hotel’ and that the JandK ID was not valid. They said they had orders and that it was OYO’s policy, too,” he alleged.
Rafiq added that when he pressed the hotel staff to show him written proof of the policy, they claimed it was in the OYO app and refused to entertain any further questions.
“It’s very humiliating. When I called the OYO helpline, I was told the policy is that nationals from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan are barred from checking into the hotel,” he said. “They apologised for the inconvenience and offered to shift my booking to another hotel.”
This, however, isn’t the first such incident involving Kashmiris. In August last year, several reports claimed OYO Rooms was denying Kashmiris a place to stay citing “government orders”.
For more information, contact:
Kashmir Media Service
Phone: +92-51-4435548, +92-51-4435549
Fax: +92-51-4861736
Email: info@kmsnews.org
Website: www.kmsnews.org