A hotel in Bengaluru believes that Hindus and Muslims cannot possibly to choose to marry each other. Olive Residency, in the city’s Sudhama Nagar, on Tuesday denied an interfaith couple a room after its receptionist found it too hard to believe they were actually married, and eventually decided letting them stay was simply not worth the risk either way.
“We don’t give rooms to Muslims and Hindus who come together,” the receptionist told The News Minute. “What if they go into the room and hang themselves...Why do we need that trouble. I’m not saying they’ll commit suicide because they’re a Hindu-Muslim couple. But ordinarily, in villages, it does not happen...There, Hindus don’t get married to Muslim women, and Muslims don’t get married to Hindu women.”
Shafeek Subaida Hakkim and Divya DV had travelled to Bengaluru for work on Tuesday. Hakkim said the receptionist refused to give them a room right after seeing their IDs and kept questioning their interfaith marriage.
“When I confirmed that we were in fact married, he refused to give us a single room, saying it is not acceptable for a Muslim and a Hindu to stay together,” he said. “I told the receptionist that I would file a police complaint and yet he refused to budge.”
The receptionist said he got suspicious after noticing that they did not have much luggage.
Hakkim, who is a journalist, and Divya, a PhD student at Ernakulam’s Government Law College, came to the city as she had an interview at the National Law School in Bengaluru.
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