Sonari resident Rathin Majumder and his family are regulars at the KFC outlet at P&M Hi-Tech City Centre Mall in Bistupur, but Tuesday perhaps spoiled their appetite for anything the American fast food chain may have to offer ever again.

Majumder, wife Natasha and their six-year-old daughter Janessa had ordered their evening snacks in the food court. The little girl was about to take a bite of her made-to-order plain cheese burger when she spotted a worm. As her outraged parents approached KFC executives at the counter, their alleged initial reaction was that the worm had crept into the burger from “somewhere else”.

KFC reimbursed the bill after the incident and has promised a probe. The family nonetheless lodged a general diary with Bistupur police on Wednesday.

“My daughter was decorating her burger with French fries when she noticed the worm crawling inside the base bun. We complained, but the tone of KFC’s response was denial. I was aghast. Worse, they were offering us free this and free that to compensate for their incompetence and negligence,” Natasha told this newspaper.

Majumder captured the entire episode on his phone around 6.30pm and posted the video clip on social networking sites such as Facebook and YouTube. By Tuesday night, the clip had more than 36,000 views and over 1,200 shares on Facebook.

“If this is the state of quality management in a brand like KFC, god help people,” said Majumder, an employee of a private industrial firm in Adityapur. “Had my daughter eaten the burger; had she taken ill, who would have been responsible?” he asked.

Natasha said regional manager of KFC Subrata Chakraborty called her from Patna after the incident and asked if they could visit her home.

“He (Chakraborty) said ‘sorry’ over phone, but what is the point now? People from KFC want to come visit us, but what for? We are not filing a legal complaint because we are too busy to do rounds of courts. My husband has asked the regional manager to email us instead,” she said.

The agency that handles PR for KFC replied to an email from this newspaper, quoting a spokesperson whom it refused to name. The email said the fast food chain was investigating the incident.

“KFC India is committed to following the best international standards across all restaurants. We would like to assure our customers that we take all measures to serve products that are of the highest quality and safe for consumption. We have been notified of this issue and are investigating the incident. Customers are welcome to walk into our restaurants across India, and ask for a kitchen tour, to see for themselves the stringent quality and hygiene standards that we follow,” the email read.

While the family did not ask for any money, KFC returned Rs 460 which was their total billed amount for two super charger burgers, a plain cheese burger and a large box of French fries.