On 12th March, a student named Arpan Verma had gone to a Cafe Coffee Day (CCD) outlet in Hawamahal, Jaipur. Going by his account, after ordering his drink he noticed that the refrigerator in that outlet, which contained all the food items, had cockroaches and other bugs in it.
After bringing it to the notice of the employees, he cancelled his order and got his refund. He claims that instead of taking corrective steps, the employees continued to serve other customers from the same contaminated fridge. They allegedly placed menu cards over the part of the fridge to hide the cockroach infestation.
This led to Arpan telling other customers about the infestation. This apparently made the CCD employees get angry, who then asked him to leave the store. As claimed by him, the employees even hurled abuses and one started to record a video from her mobile phone.
This spurred Arpan to start his own recording wherein he is seen showing the cockroaches at the store. The recording also shows a female employee, who in turn was recording his actions. As he was recording the video, that female employee suddenly emerged from behind the shelf and slapped Arpan.
Here’s the video in question:
@irvpaswan @CafeCoffeeDay @jagograhakjago @consaff
A slap to consumerism. #bhagograhakbhago pic.twitter.com/bbE35OOyOa— Nikhil Anand Singh (@nikhilanand88) March 25, 2017
With this assault on captured on camera, Arpan and his friends thought that they have enough proof to make CCD apologise for this behaviour and take action against their employee.
However, nothing of that sort has happened. According to activist Deepika Bhardwaj, the CCD authorities took the female employee to the police station, not to turn her in for physically assaulting a customer, but to submit a complaint of eve-teasing, harassment and molestation against Arpan. This was apparently done so that he doesn’t go public with his expose.
As the incident occurred more than two weeks ago, according to Deepika, the boy Arpan has even been called by the Jaipur police to take part in the investigation, thanks to the complaint against him.
Even though it is not possible to ascertain what transpired between Arpan and the employees before he shot the video, the recording by him doesn’t suggest any provocation from his side except him showing the cockroaches. If the CCD employees’ version is correct, their recording should be in public to counter claims of Arpan, but there doesn’t seem to be any.
After the incident finally went viral, the CCD authorities, maybe as a face saver, assured on their Twitter page that they had escalated the issue and their team was checking the facts. However, they allegedly hadn’t taken any action till earlier today:
So @CafeCoffeeDay hasn’t taken any action so far. Neither apologizd to @arpan_verma15 nor taken action against staff. Enquiries not over eh?
— Deepika Bhardwaj (@DeepikaBhardwaj) March 28, 2017
Arpan Verma, the most likely victim in this case also put out a Facebook post, wherein he lamented how CCD which, ironically has a ‘lot can happen over a coffee’ tagline, resorted to emotional manipulation and strong arming tactics against him.
He also claimed that he has sent a legal notice to the company, and if they failed to address his grievances, he would pursue the matter in a court of law.
UPDATE (29th March 2017): Activist Deepika Bhardwaj has claimed that instead of taking any corrective steps against their employee, CCD officials are pressing charges against Arpan and trying to get him arrested:
Shocked, disgusted n sad. @arpan_verma15 went for investigation n @jaipur_police is arresting him. NO 41A served. Shame @CafeCoffeeDay pic.twitter.com/H9m2n62JJj
— Deepika Bhardwaj (@DeepikaBhardwaj) March 29, 2017
