Fired by Goregaon firm over caste on Ambedkar Jayanti, alleges youth
23-year-old marketing executive fired allegedly for his caste on Ambedkar Jayanti in Mumbai. FIR filed against employer under SC/ST Act
Mumbai: When 23-year-old Sakal (name changed to protect identity), a Bachelor of Arts in Mass Media and Communication, started working as a marketing executive at an event management company in Goregaon on April 9, he did not imagine that he would a few fired days after, on Ambedkar Jayanti, allegedly for his caste.
On April 14, Sakal received a message on WhatsApp from his employer, asking him, “Tu Jai Bhim wala hai kya (Are you Dalit)”; when he replied in the affirmative, the employer reverted “Main Jai Bhim wale ko job pe nahi rakhti (I don’t employ Dalits),” he told the police in a complaint.
“After that message, I could not continue to work in that environment,” said Sakal. “This is the first time in my career and life that I’ve faced such caste discrimination. It is appalling that such blatant discrimination still happens in Mumbai.”
Based on his complaint, the Goregaon West police on Wednesday registered an FIR under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 and the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955 against Neha Dutt, owner of the event management firm Elite Sapphire Events.
Sakal was interviewed for the job by Dutt on April 8, and she asked him to join the next day on a monthly salary of ₹15,000. After the exchange of messages with his employer on Sunday, he informed his parents and they approached advocate Deepak Sonavne, also a social activist, for help in filing a complaint.
“Even today, in a metropolis like Mumbai, highly educated youth are being discriminated against on the basis of caste,” said Sonavne.
Neha Dutt, owner of firm, did not deny sending the message but said it did not imply that she had fired the 23-year-old from the job. “I didn’t tell him not to come to work. When he didn’t turn up on Monday, I messaged him asking him where he was.”