After company denies job to Muslim graduate, corporator in Mumbai holds 'secular' job fair

After graduate Zeeshan Khan was denied a job with a Mumbai-based diamond export company because of his religion, a corporator Mohsin Haider held a ‘secular’ job fair in Andheri, Mumbai on Saturday as a constructive response to the incident. [caption id=“attachment_2260278” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. Thinkstock[/caption] “After we heard of the injustice to Zeeshan, we called our festival ‘secular’ though it has always been so. Around 25 companies participated in the fair and gave jobs to 5,000 candidates,” The Times of India quoted Haider as saying. Indian Union Muslim League city president Parvez S Lakdawala also promised jobs to 10 non-Muslims in his firms after the incident, reported TOI. On Tuesday, 22-year-old Zeeshan Ali Khan, a recent MBA graduate, had applied for a marketing job with a Mumbai-based diamond export company along with two of his classmates Mukund Mani and Omkar Bansode. While his two friends were called in for an interview the next day, Zeeshan got an email that read: “Thanks for your application. We regret to inform you that we hire only non-Muslim candidates.” An FIR has now been filed against the company, for denying Zeeshan a job, and relevant charges have been pressed. Upset over being discriminated due to his religion, Zeeshan had immediately posted a picture of the company’s reply on Facebook, sparking widespread criticism of the company’s decision. “I was looking for a job, I came to know about a recruitment drive taking place at Hare Krishna Exports Pvt LTD, one of the leading exports houses of the country. I thought it would be a wonderful opportunity to start my career with them,” Khan had said. “I applied for a job day before yesterday in the evening at 5:45 pm and within 15 minutes, I get a reply from them that we regret to inform you, we don’t hire Muslims. We only hire non-Muslim candidates. I was quite shocked when I read about this, I took a screen shot of it and posted it on Facebook,” he had said. “At a time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi is visiting foreign countries and inviting them for investment and pushing ahead the ‘Make in India’ campaign, the leading export houses are rejecting candidates for their religion,” he had said. Reacting to the controversy, Minister of state for Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi had said, “A person’s caste, area or religion cannot be a demerit. Discrimination on the basis of religion is neither allowed by our Constitution, nor by our administration. If there has been case in which he (Zeeshan) was denied or fired from the job only on the basis of his religion, then I feel its not right.” (With inputs from PTI)