Hindu employee penalised at Indian multinational company; job terminated after challenging policy restricting Hindu symbols and opposing discriminatory practices

Case ID : 30a7e56 | Location : Pune, Maharashtra, India | Date of Incident : Mon, 24 November, 2025

Case ID : 30a7e56

Pune, Maharashtra, India

24 November, 2025

Hindu employee penalised at Indian multinational company; job terminated after challenging policy restricting Hindu symbols and opposing discriminatory practices

Attack not resulting in death

Attacked for opposing radicals or trying to save victim

Case Summary

A Hindu employee was terminated from his job in Pune, Maharashtra, after raising concerns about workplace restrictions on Hindu religious symbols. He had objected to policies that penalised visible expressions of his faith. His actions were followed by disciplinary consequences. The situation escalated after he formally reported the issue. The Hindu man, Akash Falake, was employed as a store manager at a Lenskart outlet in Pune. During his employment, internal audits began identifying and penalising staff who wore Hindu religious markers such as bindis and tikas. These penalties directly affected employee ratings and salaries. On 25th November 2025, the Hindu man formally raised the issue with the company’s Human Resources department in writing. He highlighted that employees wearing bindis and tikas were being penalised during store audits. Despite this, the practice continued. On 8th December 2025, he escalated the matter again to senior Human Resources officials. He reiterated that the policy was impacting Hindu employees and restricting their ability to display religious symbols. No corrective action followed this escalation. Through January 2026 and February 2026, the audit-based deductions continued. Hindu employees who wore bindis or tikas faced repeated penalties in their performance evaluations. The Hindu man continued to raise objections internally, including escalation to the legal team, but did not receive a response. On 20th February 2026, the Hindu man filed a formal complaint on the Maharashtra government grievance portal regarding the ongoing policy and its impact on Hindu employees. On the same day, his employment was terminated. Following the termination, the matter came under public and administrative scrutiny. The Hindu man’s complaint remained on record with the government grievance system. No formal resolution or reversal of the employment decision was confirmed. The matter remained under scrutiny. Lenskart has come under scrutiny after allegations of religious discrimination at the workplace against Hindu employees have surfaced. The issue first came to light when a customer who had visited a Lenskart outlet shared a video online, questioning staff about their dress code. In the viral video, a store employee stated that wearing items such as a kalava and a bindi was not allowed in the workplace. At the same time, the employee said that the hijab was permitted. The video was posted on social media with captions questioning this distinction. As the news spread, testimonies of Hindu employees who fell prey to this religious discrimination began to surface. In another similar incident, a Hindu man named Zeel Soghasia from Surat, Gujarat, working at Lenskart's Navi Mumbai store, was fired after he refused to remove his tilak, religious tattoos, and shikha. It later came to light that these instructions were part of an official training document, which prohibited Hindu religious markers while permitting the hijab (worn by Muslims) and turban (worn by Sikhs) under certain conditions. Following backlash, Lenskart initially dismissed the document as 'outdated', but later the founder apologised and claimed that such policies had existed in the past and had since been amended.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category - Attack not resulting in death. Within this, the subcategory selected is - Attacked for opposing radicals or trying to save victim. In several cases, Hindus are attacked for opposing religiously motivated crimes being committed against a fellow Hindu or simply for voicing an opinion opposing radical elements, who either have in the past or continue to persecute Hindus. In such cases, the initial attack against the victim, against which the Hindu was trying to defend the victim, would also need to be classified as a religiously motivated hate crime. Since the initial crime itself was religiously motivated and the subsequent crime of attempting to save the victim or speaking against the radical elements ends up inviting a violent attack, it would also be classified as a religiously motivated hate crime under this category. This case qualified as a religiously motivated hate crime because a Hindu employee was penalised and ultimately terminated after opposing workplace practices that restricted Hindu religious expression. The harm was directed at him after he raised concerns about discrimination affecting Hindu employees. His actions were linked to protecting the ability of Hindus to display their faith. Religion was central to both the discriminatory policy and the retaliation that followed. In the primary religious marker, the Hindu man faced targeted professional harm that did not result in death but directly impacted his livelihood. His termination followed a sequence of events where he raised concerns about penalties imposed on Hindu religious symbols such as bindis and tikas. For a Hindu individual, these symbols are not optional accessories but visible expressions of religious identity and belief. The workplace penalties reduced salaries and affected performance ratings, creating a sustained form of economic harm. He chose to challenge this system, and the consequence was the loss of his employment. This was not a routine disciplinary outcome. The timing of his termination, on the same day he filed a formal grievance, showed that the harm was directly linked to his resistance. This demonstrated that the perpetrating institution imposed consequences that specifically targeted a Hindu individual’s attempt to defend religious expression, revealing intent to suppress and penalise Hindu identity in a professional setting. For a Hindu individual, opposing such practices becomes an act of defending not only personal identity but also the broader rights of the Hindu community within that environment. The response to his actions was not engagement or correction but termination. This showed that the retaliation was not merely administrative but directed at silencing opposition to policies that disadvantaged Hindus. By removing the individual who raised the issue, the institution ensured that resistance to such practices would be discouraged. This revealed that the action taken against him was intended to deter others from challenging restrictions placed on Hindu identity, demonstrating deliberate targeting of a Hindu individual because he opposed actions that harmed Hindus. Given that this case met the parameters of a religiously motivated hate crime, it was added to the hate crime database of the tracker.