Bengaluru, Mar 22 (DHNS): A group of about 25 members from a Jain family had a shock of their life on Sunday night when they were served chicken biriyani in a vegetarian restaurant.
Some of the unsuspecting members finished it, only to realise later that what they ate was a non-veg dish.
In this connection, one of the family members lodged a complaint with the Upparpet police for being cheated at a vegetarian restaurant and served food that hurt their religious sentiments.
The Upparpet police have treated it as a crime without any criminal intent and registered a ‘non-cognisable’ report.
Hemant Khinwasara had gone to Rangoli veg restaurant with his family on Kalidasa Road in Gandhi Nagar. They had ordered jeera rice and vegetable biriyani. While there was no problem with the jeera rice, the vegetable biriyani was in fact chicken biriyani. Some of the members grew suspicious when they saw some ‘strange pieces’ on the platter, which did not look like vegetables.
Khinwasara said, “When we enquired with the waiter, he convinced us that it was basically ‘paneer’ and mushroom. This made some of us start eating.”
What some women perceived as mushroom had bones. This angered the members who unleashed their anger at the hotel management.
The family sought an explanation from the management to how non-veg food was cooked in a vegetarian restaurant and demanded an appropriate bill with details of chicken biriyani served to them. The apologetic restaurant did not provide any bill and waived the charges.
The manager told them that although Rangoli was a veg restaurant, they do cook non-veg in their kitchen for guests in the adjoining Hotel Akshaya Aura. The waiter might have messed up and supplied the chicken biriyani to the family, he said.
The Upparpet police confirmed receiving the complaint, but said they had registered the case as non-cognisable. The Khinwasara family has objected to the police registering it as a non-cognisable offence.
“Our religious sentiments have been hurt by the breach of trust. This should be treated as a wilful attempt to hurt religious sentiments of a community,” said a member of the family.
When contacted, the hotel management said the hotel had been opened recently and the family was blaming them to malign the hotel’s reputation.