LONDON, Dec 15: Asda, Britain’s second-biggest supermarket, apologized on Thursday for asking ethnic South Asian staff to show their passports to prove they could work in Britain.

Four employees at Asda’s depot in Wakefield, northern England, made a formal complaint over the incident in July.

Britain has a sizeable ethnic South Asian population, particularly in the West Yorkshire area around Wakefield.

A manager used the loudspeaker system to call out a number of employees’ names, asking them to produce their documents.

Asda, owned by US retailing giant Wal-Mart, expressed deep regret and said matters had been handled ‘extremely poorly’.

It said it was trying to comply with new company legislation whereby all new employees must prove their right to work in Britain.

“We fully accept that the managers involved at Wakefield depot handled things extremely poorly — their actions simply didn’t live up to the high standards we set on equality,” Asda said in a statement.

“We deeply regret the way these managers chose to handle such a sensitive process. We’ll work tirelessly to ensure that this never happens again.” —AFP