• Thursday, April 25, 2024

HEADLINE STORY

Supermarket staff manhandle elderly Sikh customer

People queue outside an Iceland store in London on March 18, 2020. (Molly Darlington/Reuters)

By: Neeraj Krishna

AN elderly Sikh man was shoved out of an Iceland store in east London after an altercation with the employees, amid mounting chaos due panic buying cross the country.

Videos posted on Wednesday (18) show the unidentified man being pushed out of the store in Ilford, after he was repeatedly told to “get out”.

“You pushed me, you pushed me,” he kept saying to a male staff, as the row turned ugly.

When the elderly man resisted a female staff’s efforts to push him away from a billing counter, a male staff manhandled him out of the store.

Social media users slammed the Iceland staff for using violence against an elderly man.

“This is not the time for Iceland staff to be assaulting elderly customers! We are in a national crisis and older people are struggling the most,” said one.

The incident happened as supermarkets across the UK initiated measures such as rationing to curb the increasing panic buying and stockpiling among customers.

Incidentally, Iceland was among the stores that announced early opening hours for the elderly.

“In the face of unprecedented demand as a result of coronavirus, food retailers have come together to ask their customers to support each other to make sure everyone can get access to the products they need,” said Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the British Retail Consortium.

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