An incident has surfaced at the Jamia Millia Islamia University of Delhi, in which a vegetarian student was allegedly served a non-vegetarian sandwich in the varsity’s central canteen. Upon complaining to the canteen staff, the student was shoved aside and told that there is no pure vegetarian food available in the canteen.
The matter was brought up by Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) unit of Jamia Millia Islamia University. The ABVP Jamia unit posted a tweet saying, “Today at the central canteen, a vegetarian student was served a non-veg sandwich instead of a veg sandwich, and when complained, he was told that this is Jamia and no pure non-veg food is offered here.”
Ajay* (name changed on request as complainant fears retribution) said, “While the student who received the Veg sandwich is a strict vegetarian, when he went to complain to the canteen staff after being traumatized by this incident, the staff refused to acknowledge the mistake. Instead, they claimed that chicken pieces could have gone into the sandwich by mistake. Even after calling the canteen’s proprietor repeatedly, he did not show up. The canteen employees even stated that this is the RSS agenda.”
“The other students present there saw that there were chicken pieces within the sandwich. Why is there no separate vegetarian food counter in the central canteen, and how long will vegetarian students be disturbed by this in a University that ranks third in India? Why are proprietors not asked to keep a separate counter for vegetarian food before giving them the contract of the canteen, why to use the same utensils for vegetarian and non-vegetarian food?”, Ajay further asked.
Ajay further requested that the University’s Vice Chancellor should investigate this issue as quickly as possible, cancel the canteen tender, or take appropriate action so that no other vegetarian student endures the same trauma of consuming non-vegetarian food.