Woman groped on flight from Mumbai to Guwahati; 5th such case in 3 months

MUMBAI: In yet another case of sexual harassment on board a flight, a male passenger allegedly lifted the armrest and repeatedly groped a female co-passenger when the cabin lights were dimmed on a late-night IndiGo flight from Mumbai to Guwahati on Saturday. An FIR was registered and the man has been handed over to the police in Guwahati, said the airline.In the past two months, at least four sexual harassment cases involving Indian passengers have been reported on board flights.
The latest incident occurred on board flight 6E-5319 which departed Mumbai after 9pm. The woman told TOI that she was recuperating after a hospital stay. She had an aisle seat, had lowered the armrests and had fallen asleep after the cabin lights were dimmed. She woke up to find the armrest up and the male co-passenger leaning close to her.
Man who groped woman on flight handed over to police
A woman flyer travelling from Mumbai to Guwahati was groped by her copassenger on Saturday night. Recounting her ordeal to TOI, she said she woke up from a nap to find her armrest up. “I found it weird because I distinctly remembered putting the armrest down. Half-asleep, I didn’t think too much about it, put the armrest down again and went back to sleep,” she told TOI.
After some time, she woke up with a start to find the male passenger’s hands on her. His eyes were shut. “I didn’t want to jump to conclusions...so, I waited, kept my eyes half-closed and pretended to be asleep,” she said. In a couple of minutes, she found the co-passenger again groping her and touching himself inappropriately. “I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t. I froze,” she wrote. Eventually, she gathered her wits and when he again tried to grope, she pulled his hand away, screamed, turned the seat lights on and called the cabin crew. “He started apologising for what he did, while I was shouting, crying and narrating the in- cident,” she said.
IndiGo, in a statement, said that the passenger was handed over to the Guwahati police on arrival, after receiving a complaint from the woman passenger for alleged sexual harassment. “An FIR has been filed by the complainant with the local police and we will provide assistance in their investigation, where required,” the airline statement said.
The woman, in her social media post, thanked the airline, the CISF, the airport authorities and most impor- tantly, the witness who stayed back at the police station to register the case. “The world needs more people like you,” she wrote.
Following a similar case last month, the Delhi Commission for Women studied the relevant Directorate General of Civil Aviation regulations and found that sexual harassment is merely treated as ‘unruly behaviour’ under it. The commission has recommended a separate category for crimes of this nature onboard flights and at airports.