Mansoor* tells us how he was looking forward to the 15th of February. His father and younger sister were to come to Delhi from their home in Doda in Jammu and Kashmir to visit him. A student at the University of Delhi's Campus Law Centre, he had booked a hotel room for his family for the next couple of days. However, Mansoor was shocked when the hotel allegedly denied a room to his family, because they possessed an Identity card issued in Jammu and Kashmir.
"I had a booking from February 15 to 17 at Asha Residency in Vijay Nagar," says Mansoor. "When I went to check-in, they asked me for an ID. The minute they saw Jammu and Kashmir written on the ID card, they told me that people from Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan and Bangladesh cannot get a room in their property and that it is against their policy," he says.
Since the property is managed by popular budget hotel chain OYO, Mansoor was quick to call OYO's customer care. However, he says that he was offered a different hotel by the company. "That particular hotel apparently doesn't offer rooms to people from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. I'm from neither of these territories," he says. "Later, they blamed it on the particular property where we were supposed to stay. That hotel had told us "J&K ID humare yahan nahi chalta (J&K ID doesn't work in our land)," he says.
Mansoor has accommodated his family in his apartment currently. He also tells us that he will go to court against the company. "My father is a retired government officer. He felt really insulted after this incident. This issue needs to be addressed soon," he says.
We have reached out to OYO and it's founder for their comments. The copy will be updated when they respond. The management of that particular property did not respond to our calls.
