Three passengers travelling on board an IndiGo Airlines flight bound to Mumbai from Kolkata were handed over to the police on Thursday for allegedly misbehaving with the cabin crew.
Only one of them was later arrested for shooting videos of the airhostesses on his mobile phone.
While airline sources said all three had used the phone to shoot the videos, the police said only one of them was guilty. A passenger had alerted the crew about it.
An Indigo Airlines spokesperson confirmed the incident.
“On IndiGo flight 6E 326 from Kolkata to Mumbai, some passengers started capturing video of the cabin crew mid-air. One of the other passengers informed the crew that they were being videographed. The captain was informed about the incident. On arrival, the security staff handed over the three passengers to the airport police. The safety of our passengers and crew is of utmost importance and there is no compromise towards safety,” said the spokesperson.
Airline sources said the three passengers had travelled to Kolkata by road from Bangladesh.
But only one of the three passengers was arrested after a police investigation revealed two of them had no role to play. “The two others were accompanying the accused, but were not involved in the crime. The arrested accused was shooting the video on his own,” said Pankaj Pawar, police sub-inspector probing the case.
Despite long-pending demands from passengers’ forums and the airlines’ industry to have stringent action against unruly passengers, the civil aviation ministry is yet to introduce such measures. Recently, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) permitted domestic airlines’ crew to carry plastic handcuffs on board to contain such passengers. From assaulting the crew to smoking in the lavatory, to breaking armrests, cases of passenger violence on board are not stray incidents.
