Mumbai mall wants father of 6-yr-old special child to delete Facebook post

Highlighting the injustice inflicted on his special girl, Tiana, at Fun City in Goregaon's Oberoi Mall, has got the father, Neville Dhabhar, a lot of attention, but also constant calls from the mall authorities pressuring him to delete the Facebook post.

According to Neville, since mid-day wrote about Tiana, a special child who wasn't allowed to enter Fun City, he has been receiving constant calls from mall authorities asking him to remove the Facebook post, which has been shared multiple times.

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Neville Dhabhar with his six-year-old daughter, Tiana. Picture is blurred on request

Neville said, "I have asked the mall authorities to ask Fun City to issue an public apology which they have refused to do. The GM of the mall who has been calling me since the matter got printed said that they have called for an urgent meeting for which Pankaj Bhatt (business head for the franchise) is flying to Mumbai and intends to meet me as well. I fail to understand if they are not ready to apologize then why are they asking me to delete the post."

He added, "In the last call they told me that they have been getting international calls about the issue and hence they would want to discontinue the topic."

The Bandra ALM has also extended it's support to the family. Activist Zameer Palamkote, from Almost, said, "The least that the management of Fun City can do, is to tender a public apology not only to the Dhabhar family but to all the families with children having special needs, who are appalled by this pathetic behaviour." He has also written to the other ALMs for supporting the family.

The Incident

Last Saturday, Neville Dhabhar and his wife took their daughter, Tiana, to Fun City, a gaming zone, in Goregaon's Oberoi mall.

They usually do this at least once a week, since the time their six-year-old spends gaming is like therapy for her, Dhabhar told us. But as soon as they reached the third floor and were about to enter the playing area, an attendant of the store came to the couple and said the manager would like to talk to them.

When they met with the manager, he told the couple a most inhuman thing: that he couldn't allow their daughter, who has partial albinism in the playing zone. The reason he gave was so benighted that we will let Dhabhar's post on Facebook say it.

In the social media post, that was shared multiple times, the disheartened father stated, "On his arrival the manager told us that Tiana couldn't enter the playing area, as the last time some parent had complained about her. On asking him the reason for the complaint, we were told that 'children are getting scared looking at her because she is a special child'.

I just couldn't believe what he was saying. After a heated argument, other parents joined in our favor and made sure Tiana could play. And to top it up the guy said, "Fine, we shall allow her to play," as if he was doing us a favor.

"Does the person even realise what he would have been (subject to) if this was in the UAE, US or Europe? These countries respect such kids and do as much as they can for them. It's an absolute shame that we are living in this kind of culture where even young kids are not respected."