An Airtel customer named Pooja Singh recently took to twitter complaining of poor services by one of the Airtel executives. To which an Airtel executive, named Shoaib responded to get back shortly with more information. The woman lashed at the executive in the tweet and refusing to speak to him being a Muslim. The entire conversation spurred up even further when Airtel itself interfered by taking a stand for their employee.
The Airtel executive, Shoaib, responded to Pooja with the message, “Hey, I most definitely appreciate you reaching out here! We’ll take a closer look into that & get back shortly with more information. Thank you, Shoaib.”
The woman, whose Twitter bio says proud Hindu wrote, “Dear Shohaib, as you’re a Muslim and I have no faith in your working ethics because Kuran may have different version for customer service, thus requesting you to assign a Hindu representative for my request. Thanks (sic).”
Airtel initially succumbed to the customer’s request and wrote, “Hi Pooja! As discussed, please let me know what days & time frames work best for you so we can talk. Further, please share an alternate number so that I can assist you further with this. Thank you, Gaganjot.”
This caused public outrage all over social media. Many eminent personalities also came ahead to speak up on the issue.
Activist Kavita Krishnan too demanded a clarification from Airtel on the same.
She tweeted, “Ditto. @Airtel_Presence @airtelindia we too are your customers and are waiting for you to publicly clear your stand, defend your employee Shoaib who was subjected to discrimination on grounds of religion (unconstitutional), tell the bigoted customer you stand by #Shoaib.”
Irfan Habib, wrote, “Can’t believe this is for real and some of us have degenerated to this dangerous level.”
Now, Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has threatened to port his mobile number from Airtel if the company steps down for any reason.
Dear @Airtel_Presence this conversation is genuine (I’ve seen the timeline myself). I refuse to pay another penny to a company that condones such blatant bigotry. I’m beginning the process of porting my number to another service provider & canceling my DTH & Broadband. pic.twitter.com/BZxJOaEsN6
— Omar Abdullah (@OmarAbdullah) June 18, 2018
Abdullah wrote, “Dear @Airtel_Presence this conversation is genuine (I’ve seen the timeline myself). I refuse to pay another penny to a company that condones such blatant bigotry. I’m beginning the process of porting my number to another service provider & canceling my DTH & Broadband.”
In the face of public outrage, Airtel now has finally issued a statement making its stand and wrote; ‘Dear Pooja, at Airtel, we absolutely do not differentiate between customers, employees and partners on the basis of caste or religion. We would urge you to do the same. Both Shoaib and Gaganjot are part of our customer resolution team. If any customer contacts us for an ongoing service issue then the first available service executive responds in the interest of time. On your query, we will get back to you as soon as there is an update. Thanks – Himanshu, Airtel Response Team Lead.’