Insect in restaurant food: Customer files counter-complaint

Five months after a customer complained that he found bugs in his food at the popular Rameshwaram Café outlet at Kempegowda International Airport, a fresh controversy has erupted. While the cafe had previously filed a lawsuit, the customer has now filed a counter-complaint.

Based on a complaint filed by city-based realtor Nikhil N., Kempegowda International Airport police registered an FIR against cafe owners Raghavendra Rao, his wife Divya Raghavendra Rao and senior manager Sumanth Lakshminarayan. A lawsuit was filed against them for selling harmful food, providing false information, criminal conspiracy and making threats.

According to the complaint, Mr. Nikhil, a resident of Marathahalli, visited the Terminal-1 outlet of the cafe on July 24. He allegedly found an insect in the pongal served to him. Although the staff reportedly agreed to replace the meal, Nikhil refused as he had a flight to catch. The incident was recorded by other customers and photographs of the contaminated pongal were taken, the complaint said.

But even before the customer filed a complaint, there was a change in the case. The next day, Sumanth Lakshminarayan, the cafe’s operations chief, filed a complaint at Vyalikaval police station, accusing the group of customers of blackmail and extortion, claiming that they had demanded ₹25 lakh.