A woman has alleged that she and her husband faced religious discrimination by a family at a D-Mart supermarket located in the Yashwant Gaurav residential area of Virar, near Mumbai. A video of the incident has gone viral on social media, in which a burqa-clad woman explains what happened.
In the video, the woman said she and her husband were standing in a queue for billing at the D-Mart store when another woman passed religiously discriminatory remarks. The woman alleged that the other woman told her, “Tum toh gandi jaat ke ho, tum toh duur raho” (You are from a dirty caste, so you should stay away).
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She further alleged that when her husband objected and said the woman was behaving uncivilly, the woman’s husband threatened to rape her. “Tu Musalmaan aurat hai na? Chal tu bahar nikal, main aadmiyon ko bula kar tera rape karwata hoon” (You are a Muslim woman, right? Come out, I will call men and have you raped), the woman alleged in the viral video.
The woman also claimed that other customers, including D-Mart officials, did not intervene in the matter. Instead, they allegedly asked the couple to leave the store. “They asked us to speak in Marathi, and said that if we did not, we would not be allowed to enter the supermarket in the future,” she said.
The woman said they filed a complaint at the Virar Police Station, but no action has been taken so far. She further alleged that instead of taking action against the accused, the police harassed her and her husband. “We were surrounded by around eight police officers, while the accused couple was allowed to go free. The police did not register any complaint against them and insisted that I needed to speak in Marathi. There was no woman constable present,” she said in the video.
She further claimed that the police continued to harass them by repeatedly calling them to the police station and demanding that they apologise to the accused couple. “Why should we apologise when it was not our fault? The other couple started the fight by targeting our religion,” she said.
The woman also alleged that the D-Mart store did not provide CCTV footage of the incident and reportedly told them that Muslims would not be allowed to enter the supermarket in the future.