BENGALURU: The Tuesday evening incident, wherein a Saudi national was touched inappropriately by a male staff at the Mathikere franchise of Jawed Habib Hair & Beauty Salon, was not the first such case. Such incidents, however, never reach the police stations, according to the owner of another franchise of the same company in North Bengaluru.Jawed Habib Hair & Beauty Salon, which has over 20 franchises spread across Bengaluru, has been reportedly alerted about such behaviour by its employees, but never were those incidents taken seriously.
“Some owners of the Bengaluru branches of this unisex salon chain have alerted the company managers during conference meetings; but the company has not considered it as serious,” a franchise owner in North Bengaluru told The New Indian Express.On Tuesday, a 19-year-old student at an education institution in Mathikere accused one of the staffers of inappropriately touching her. When she pointed out that Lucky Singh was touching her inappropriately, the franchise owner—Prashant Kumar—allegedly told her, “Don’t make it an issue…I will bring a female employee to attend to you,” the victim informed The New Indian Express.
The owner of the franchise in North Bengaluru further said “Many employees at the salons are not trained adequately and are not aware of how to behave with the customers — especially the female customers. The company also does not bother to check their backgrounds.” At their particular franchise, no male employee is allowed to attend to female customers.Meanwhile, Yeshwanthpur police have issued a notice to the owner of the Mathikere parlour seeking an explanation.Repeated attempts by this paper to reach Prashant Kumar, the owner of the franchise where the incident took place, proved futile.