New Delhi: A mid-air brawl, a confrontation loaded with emotion, and a lurid act. This briefly lists the many controversies involving Indian air travellers in the past few months.
But while videos of these instances surface online and go viral in no time, the registration of police cases against those engaging in unacceptable behaviour on flights, is almost negligible in absolute terms, at least in the case of Delhi.
The latest instance of inappropriate behaviour on a flight came to light earlier this week after it was reported that a drunk male passenger, identified as Mumbai-based Shankar Mishra (35) had allegedly urinated on an elderly woman onboard an Air India flight from New York to Delhi on 26 November.
Disappointed with the airline’s handling of the incident, the 75-year-old woman from Karnataka wrote to Tata Group Chairman N. Chandrasekaran, narrating her “traumatic experience”.
The Delhi Police, despite filing an FIR against Mishra, is yet to take him into custody. The case against Mishra has been filed under IPC sections 294 (obscene act), 354 (outraging a woman’s modesty), 509 (act intended to insult woman’s modesty), 510 (misconduct in public under influence of alcohol), besides relevant sections of the Aircraft rules, 1937.
“Legal Manager, Air India, on 28 December reported an incident to IGI police which took place onboard flight AI 102, from New York to Delhi on 26 November. On the flight, an inebriated male passenger urinated on a woman passenger. More details were sought from Air India and the woman. The lady conveyed that her original complaint to Air India be treated as her formal complaint,” a source in the Delhi Police told ThePrint.
A nearly identical instance has also come to light involving a drunk male passenger who allegedly urinated on a woman passenger’s blanket on a New York-New Delhi Air India flight, on the Paris-Delhi sector, on 6 December.
Officials said the pilot of the aircraft reported the matter to the Air Traffic Control (ATC) at the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport, following which the male passenger was apprehended upon landing. But news agency PTI reported that both passengers later reached a “mutual compromise”. Sources in the Delhi Police said no FIR was registered against the man and that the aviation authorities haven’t reached out to the police.
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String of controversies
In May last year, a woman complainant had alleged that a fellow passenger forcibly grabbed her, tried to pull her into his arms and kept touching her face onboard a New York-Delhi flight. A case was registered against the man under IPC sections 354 (assault or criminal force to women to outrage modesty) and 354 B (assault or criminal force to any woman or abets such act with the intention of disrobing a woman).
However, the court accepted a cancellation report after the woman refused to record her statement in front of a magistrate under section 164 of the CrPC, resulting in the man’s discharge from the case.
According to data accessed by ThePrint, no FIR pertaining to charges of molestation on a flight were registered by the Delhi Airport police in all of 2022.
These incidents are the latest in a string of controversies surrounding air travel in India.
The most talked-about controversy involved a brawl between passengers on a Bangkok-Kolkata Thai Smile flight reportedly over one passenger’s refusal to straighten his reclining seat. After a video of the incident went viral, the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) initiated an enquiry and sought a detailed report in this regard. An FIR was also registered in the case last week against two of the flyers by Bidhannagar City Police in Kolkata under IPC sections pertaining to assault, wrongful restraint and criminal intimidation.
Yet another incident onboard a flight that sparked a discussion about the behaviour of Indian air travellers surfaced on 21 December. Shot on camera, the incident — purportedly from 16 December last year — involved an argument between a passenger and the IndiGo cabin crew onboard an Istanbul-New Delhi flight. In the video, an air hostess can be heard telling the passenger that the cabin crew members are not his “servants” and that the passenger’s actions were so unacceptable that they made the crew cry.
Data with ThePrint also shows that the Delhi Police registered a complaint on 15 July last year against one Bobby Kataria, a social media influencer, under relevant sections of the Suppression of Unlawful Act against Safety of Civil Aviation Act for smoking a cigarette onboard a Spicejet flight. Kataria had recorded a video of him smoking inside the aircraft which led to outrage on social media, resulting in Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia demanding strict action against Kataria who was later arrested.
Further, nine kalandra (non-cognizable report) were filed by the Delhi Airport police in 2022 under section 25 of the Aircraft rules, against passengers found smoking on the flight. A source in the Delhi Police explained, “Smoking inside the flight falls under non-cognizable offence. Hence, an NC report (kalandra) is prepared and the passenger is fined and let off.”
On 15 September last year, another FIR (First Information Report) was registered by the Delhi Airport police under the Suppression of Unlawful Act against Safety of Civil Aviation Act against Canadian citizen Harvey Mann for allegedly misbehaving with crew members.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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