Owners of garment store ‘Hitler’ in Vastrapur area of Ahmedabad that stirred a controversy have decided to change the shop’s name, following intervention by Israel and Jews.
“We have voluntarily decided to change the name by this week and shall remove the billboard ‘Hitler’,” Rajesh Shah, one of the owners, said.
In the name board the ‘i’ is dotted with a Nazi swastika.
Earlier, a group of Jews from a synagogue here demanded the shop owners to change the name, saying it hurt the sentiments of their community.
Israel Counsel-General Orna Sagiv, who is on a visit to Gujarat, took up the issue with officials here.
“I met top officials and expressed my concern about this shop and why we see it so seriously,” he told PTI.
In the past few years, similar incidents have been reported from Nagpur and Navi Mumbai, but the shop owners later changed the name. Ignorance was the reason behind such acts.
“After realising how much pain and hurt it caused to some community, they [shop owners] decided to change the name,” she added. The shop that sells menswear was opened last month and the name was selected in memory of the grandfather of one of the shopowners, who was nicknamed ‘Hitler’ for being very strict.
