On Wednesday (August 30), actress Hazel Keech (Bodyguard) and her cricketer fiancée Yuvraj Singh had a shockingly unpleasant experience at a Western Union branch in Jaipur, Rajasthan.
According to tweets sent out by Hazel, the man at the counter, one Peeyush Sharma, refused to go through her transactions and give her the money because her name wasn't 'Hindu' enough.
Yuvraj Singh too expressed his anger at the whole incident and said that this behavior will not be tolerated.
Mr Piyush Sharma @WesternUnion in Jaipur this behaviour will not be tolerated,we would expect some serious action to be taken against him !
— yuvraj singh (@YUVSTRONG12) August 30, 2016
Keech, who now resides in India, was raised in London and is British-Mauritian by birth. Her mother is a Mauritian Hindu of Bihari ancestry.
HuffPost India got in touch with Western Union and a spokesperson for the company confirmed that the incident did take place at their Jaipur outlet.
Said the spokesperson, "We deeply regret the incident as it illustrates everything that the company does not stand for. It's an unfortunate event that happened with Hazel. However, I'd like to add that as per the laws of India, we're supposed to establish the relationship between the sender and the receiver and this incident was, in all likelihood, an inappropriate result of that process."
The person said that the process itself requires asking of additional questions which get can get tricky.
The spokesperson added that identification of both parties need to be completely established so as to avoid cases of money laundering. "That, however, does not justify the behaviour of Mr. Peeyush Sharma. It is not acceptable to make a reference to someone's religion. We've initiated an inquiry into the entire episode and will take suitable action."
While Hazel's last tweet regarding the entire episode was...
... Western Union confirmed, in a statement shared on Thursday afternoon, that she had received her remittance at another agent location.
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