A debate centering around how the Capital views its differently-abled citizens was stoked a day after a 27-year-old activist was allegedly denied entry to an upscale South Delhi restro-bar.
Nipun Malhotra, who has arthrogryposis, a congenital disorder which leads to lack of muscles in the arms and legs, said he was disallowed from joining his friends at their table in Keya, a cocktail bar at DLF Promenade Mall in Vasant Kunj, on Friday evening.
The alleged incident saw Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia directing the Delhi Government to launch an inquiry into the incident soon after Mr. Malhotra’s tweet referring to it went viral even as the bar’s management maintained that the episode was “triggered by miscommunication”. Mr. Malhotra is a disability rights activist and co-founder of Nipman Foundation.
“A group of eight of my friends, five boys and three girls, got a table inside and were waiting for me,” Mr. Malhotra told The Hindu adding that the episode constituted “the worst discrimination” he had ever faced in Delhi.
“When I was about to reach the venue, one of my friends asked the management whether Keya was wheelchair accessible to which the latter replied that it had a policy of not allowing persons with permanent disabilities to enter the premises,” he said.
Having “been to Keya on several occasions previously”, Mr. Malhotra did not “believe this conversation” and reached the venue at 9 p.m. He told the staff stationed at the gate that his friends were already inside and had a table.
However, there was an argument with one of the staff , whom Mr. Malhotra referred to as Adi, allegedly dragging him away from the gate asking him “not to make it (the situation) awkward”.
“I demanded that he call his manager who said that my condition was not the reason I was being disallowed inside; it was because the management wanted to restrict stag entry for sometime. I refuse to believe this was the reason since my friends have pictorial proof that many such stags were sitting around them inside the bar,” Mr. Malhotra said.
According to the management of the bar, however, Mr. Malhotra “had been served on numerous occasions in the past” proving that there was “no such policy” of disallowing “those with disabilities”.
“All we told him was that there were many stag customers being served inside and several female customers had expressed lack of comfort (about their presence) to us already; we were just trying to maintain healthy balance of male and female customers,” Premjeet Kumar, director, Keya told The Hindu .
