The notice has categorised this incident as a “willful and deliberate discrimination on the basis of caste, sex, creed and region”. The notice also says the management of the bar — Urban Pind — asked the woman to reveal her nationality. “When told she was an Indian from the North-East, she was bluntly refused entry,” the notice reads.

Bar owner Kashif Farooq, however, said he was yet to receive any legal notice. He denied the charges against the management saying, “Profiling is based on dress and behaviour and not region”.

He said on Thursdays — the incident took place last Thursday — are ‘expat nights’, evenings for foreigners working in India. Farooq said, “Over 200 people were turned away because of this last week.” He added: “We have six employees from the North-East.”

The photographer was to meet two friends — a South Indian publisher and a German employee of a development bank — at Urban Pind. “I was stopped at the gate because I did not have a good profile,” she said.

Her advocate, K Enatoli Sema of the Naga Lawyers’ Guild, said the manager, Tahil, turned her away after being “told that she was from the North-East”. The photographer added she was stopped at the gate, while others — not all foreigners — were let in.

The photographer also said she was dressed sensibly in trousers, a top and scarf. She added, “It was deeply embarrassing, since the place was crowded. Finally, my publisher friend called up another friend who happened to know the owner and I was allowed in. But by then, I had been humiliated enough and decided to leave.”

The legal notice reads: “She was told by the manager that it was ‘policy’ not to allow entry to people who weren’t of the ‘right profile’. Asked why other women, including Oriental women of other nationalities, were being allowed entry... the manager said... it was the ‘policy’ laid down by the general manager.” Sema alleges there has been another instance of a Naga man being denied entry to the same lounge bar.

The photographer, who has lived in Delhi for 10 years, said: “When such discrimination happens, and it happens very often, we are forced to step back from the mainstream.”