A Delhi hotel registered with hotel aggregation company Oyo Rooms denied accommodation to a Kashmiri man, claiming that the police had directed it not to accept identification documents from Jammu and Kashmir.

A video of a conversation with a hotel employee was posted by Nasir Khuehami, the national spokesperson of the J&K Students Association. “Is being a Kashmiri a crime?” he said in a tweet.

The video shows a woman refusing to provide a room to a man, although he provided his Aadhaar card and also offered to show his passport. After a phone conversation, the woman is seen telling the man that the police have told them not to accept identification documents from Jammu and Kashmir.

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The incident took place at the Pleasant Inn hotel in Delhi.

While some people on social media claimed that the video was an old one, the co-founder of fact-checking website Alt News Mohammed Zubair shared a screen recording from the person who recorded the video. The screen recording showed that the video was taken on March 22.

In response to Khuehami, Oyo Rooms said that it was appalled by the incident. It added that it took the hotel off its platform immediately.

“Our rooms and our hearts are open for everyone, always,” Oyo said on Twitter. “This is not something we will compromise on, ever. We will definitely check what compelled the hotel to deny check-in.”

The Delhi Police said on Wednesday that it has not issued any directions to hotels not to accept identification documents from Jammu and Kashmir. “Some netizens are trying to discredit the image of Delhi Police through wilful misrepresentation of the video in circulation which can attract penal action,” it said.

The police added that the man later stayed in a different hotel in the same area, and quoted him as saying that the reason that the first hotel gave was a “lame excuse”.