The Hindu community is calling on a Muslim Dairy Queen franchise owner to take down signs from his Houston-area business that compare Hindus to monkeys.
Mohammad Dar, a 65-year-old Muslim and U.S. citizen from Pakistan, claims he is not prejudiced for installing the signs — instead saying Hindus are the “racists,” mySA.com reported.
Dar told the website that he decided to post the displays at his business after “researching” Hinduism — the third-largest religion in the world — for 14 years. He said the signs at his Kemah, Texas, Dairy Queen seek to showcase the wrongs of certain religions, specifically Hinduism, acccording to the website.
One sign reportedly compared Hinduism to “monkeyism (sic).”
“Hindus don’t follow any limit or law, they follow desires like an animal – that is the foundation of Hinduism,” Dar told mySA.com. “Monkeys don’t plan anything, they just do what they desire, but humans follow the limit and law.”
“It’s nothing personal, it’s educational,” he reportedly added. “I’m really making people mad, but what I’m doing is communicating and inviting them to communicate […] they think I am attacking their religion, but I am not.”
In a statement to mySA.com, Dairy Queen’s corporate office called the installment of the signs an “unfortunate action” and said they are “not representative of our iconic family brand.”
“We do not condone this behavior,” company officials told the website.”
Rajan Zed, president of the Universal Society of Hinduism, is calling for International Dairy Queen Inc. to issue an apology on the matter.
“Posters reportedly displayed at its Kemah store in Texas were highly inappropriate and trivialized the oldest and third largest religion of the world with about one billion adherents and a highly philosophical thought,” Zed said in the release.
He said the company “should have shown some responsibility and already taken action regarding these signs posted at the Kemah location reportedly for many months.”