IIT-B students complain of food discrimination after "vegetarians only" posters are put up on canteen walls

Representatives of the student collective Ambedkar Periyar Phule Study Circle (APPSC) condemned the incident and tore the posters. Read more on The Hindu

Students have raised the issue of food discrimination at the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay (IIT-B) after “vegetarians only” posters were put up on the walls of a canteen in one of the hostels here, a student representative said on Sunday.

Posters stating “vegetarians only are allowed to sit here” were put up on the walls of the canteen of hostel 12 at the prestigious institution last week, and a photograph of the same went viral on social media.

An official from the institute claimed that while they had found out about the posters, they did not know who had put them up in the canteen.

There are no fixed seats for people consuming different categories of food and the institute is unaware about who put up the posters, he said.

Representatives of the student collective Ambedkar Periyar Phule Study Circle (APPSC) condemned the incident and tore the posters.

“Though RTIs and emails to the hostel’s general secretary revealed that there is no policy for food segregation at the institute, some individuals have taken it upon themselves to designate certain mess areas as ‘vegetarians only’ and force other students to leave that area,” the AAPSC said.