Furniture retailer IKEA is facing the wrath of netizens after a customer’s viral tweet that accused staff from the IKEA Hyderabad branch of exhibiting racist behavior towards his Manipuri wife. On August 28, 2022, a Twitter user named Nitin Sethi who is identified as a Senior journalist, tagged IKEA and tweeted his rather painful experience at the IKEA Hyderabad store where his wife was singled out after checkout for cross-examination. Nitin’s wife hails from Manipur and was frisked by the store officials for goods she purchased. Well, singling out someone just because the person hails from North East is rather a display of racist behavior, and keeping the same in mind IKEA later was seen putting forth an apology to the customer.
Only The Woman From Manipur Got Frisked For Goods She Bought
On August 28, a senior journalist, Nitin Sethi, took to Twitter to tweet about the shameless behavior of Ikea Hyderabad store staff towards his wife. He tweeted, “Racist treatment at @IKEAIndia store in Hyderabad. Only my wife, from Manipur, got frisked for goods she bought. No one else before us. And then all supervisory staff came to defend the racism. Great show from an ‘international store’. Cheers to another usual day. #racism.” He further added that the person who checked his wife’s shopping bags, even sniggered that they had bought everything, didn’t even care to reply why they were singled out.
“And the supervisors said, yeah call police if you want, we will deal. And it didnt end there. Daily racism that our people face,” said Nitin’s tweet. Take a look:
The person who checked my wife’s shopping bags, even sniggered that we had bought everything, didn’t even care to reply why we were singled put. And the supervisors said, yeah call police if you want, we will deal. And it didnt end there. Daily racism that our people face.
— Nitin Sethi (@nit_set) August 28, 2022
IKEA Apologises
Soon after Nitin Sethi tweeted about the racist treatment of the Ikea Hyderabad store officials towards his wife, the tweet went viral. It currently has more than 10k likes and 300 plus retweets. People started commenting and asking IKEA to apologize. One media personality replied, “It’s awful. Sorry that Akoi had to go through this, Nitin. The staff at @IKEAIndia store should be taken to task,” while another netizen added, “This is the reality we live in. Discrimination in all shapes and sizes is faced by a large section of our society day in and day out. And then we cry foul of racism in other countries.” Amidst such chaos, IKEA was seen doing the right thing! The company took to Twitter and replied to Nitin’s tweet with, “Hej, at IKEA, we believe that equality is a human right, and we condemn all forms of racism and prejudice. We regret the inconvenience caused to you while following the mandatory billing protocol.” They further added that the company deeply regrets the unfortunate experience.
“Our intention was never to make you feel uncomfortable or hurt your sentiments. Sorry if we made you feel that way. Hope you will give us another opportunity to welcome you again,” replied IKEA.
Hej, at IKEA, we believe that equality is a human right, and we condemn all forms of racism and prejudice. We regret the inconvenience caused to you while following the mandatory billing protocol. (1/3)
— IKEAIndia (@IKEAIndia) August 28, 2022
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