A Noida hotel registered with hotel aggregation company Oyo Rooms denied accommodation to a Bengali technology professional and his son, claiming that the police had directed it not to accept bookings from persons from Bangladesh till Independence Day for security reasons, The Times of India reported on Wednesday.

The man and his 14-year-old son, a national-level skater, had travelled from Kolkata to Noida as the teenager was to participate in a sporting competition, the newspaper reported.

The father told the newspaper that he was informed by the receptionist about a purported police directive barring guests from Bangladesh, Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir until August 15.

“I was surprised,” he said. “I said we were not Bangladeshis but were from West Bengal. But the receptionist said it was the same thing and that he wouldn’t let us in.”

He further claimed that only after making several calls to Oyo Rooms, did the customer care executive agree to refund the payment within 7 to 10 days.

The incident took place at the Meera Eternity in Noida’s Sector 44.

In response to the incident, an unidentified official from Oyo Rooms said the hotel had been taken off its platform on the same day, adding that a probe had been initiated in the matter.

“OYO has neither received or given any such guideline to hotels on its platform,” The Times of India quoted the official as saying. “OYO does not promote any form of discrimination.”

Noida Deputy Commissioner of Police Yamuna Prasad said that no orders have been issued to hotels in the city not to accept persons from Bengal or other Indian states.

He further clarified that while hotels have been instructed to check identification and visa documents of persons from Bangladesh, “there is no directive to disallow stay to even Bangladeshi residents if they have proper papers”.

This comes amid the Trinamool Congress raising concerns about several Bengali-speaking migrant workers being targeted in parts of the country on suspicion of being Bangladeshis.

Since the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack, the police in several states ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party have been detaining Bengali-speaking persons – mostly Muslims – and asking them to prove that they are Indian citizens.