A Malayalee working in Saudi Arabia has been fired from his job for posting "derogatory comments" about Lord Ayyappa on Facebook amid the ongoing Sabarimala Temple row.
The man identified as Deepak Pavithram, an employee of Lulu Hypermarket in Riyadh has been reportedly fired for making misogynistic and derogatory comments about Lord Ayyappa and women on social media. In his post, Pavithram allegedly wrote that Lord Ayyappa can now choose from women any age group as all women are allowed to visit the shrine now, as reported by The News Minute.
The derogatory post has been deleted but screenshots are still doing the rounds on the internet.
"The Lulu Group follows strict and zero tolerance policy for misusing social media to spread malicious or derogatory comments that might hurt religious sentiments," V Nandakumar, Chief Communications Officer at Lulu Group was quoted saying.
This is the second time in recent past that the company has fired an employee on similar grounds. They had previously fired another Kerala expat in Oman for insensitive comments about Kerala flood victims on social media. Though he apologised for his conduct the next day, the company moved forward with the decision.