Air Vistara Passenger Arrested For Allegedly Molesting Cabin Crew On Flight

A cabin crew member of an Air Vistara flight was allegedly molested by a passenger on board an aircraft bound for New Delhi from Lucknow, India, reports said Tuesday.

The incident took place when the flight No. UK997 from Lucknow landed in New Delhi and was preparing to deplane March 24.

The victim reported an incident of sexual harassment by a passenger to the airlines, after which the 62-year-old accused was arrested at Indira Gandhi International airport in New Delhi.

A Vistara spokesperson told International Business Times via Twitter: "Vistara does not tolerate abusive or unruly behavior by passengers that puts the safety of its staff and other customers at risk, or compromises their dignity. We have reported the matter to the Police and other relevant authorities. An FIR is registered and investigation is on. We are fully committed to providing our cooperation to all the authorities."

This isn't the first time, the airlines has been face with such an incident. In 2017, Vikas Sachdev, a Mumbai-based businessman, was booked under Section 354 — assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty — of the Indian Penal Code, and relevant sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) after Bollywood actress Zaira Wasim accused the former of molesting her onboard a Delhi-Mumbai Air Vistara flight.

The molestation case enraged people across the nation, thus prompting intense reactions from politicians, activists, the film fraternity and others.
Later the airline apologized to the actress for the incident and said it ordered a probe into it while assuring the company has "zero tolerance" for such behavior. The Sahar police station in Mumbai later lodged a case and then arrested the accused.

The actress had narrated the entire incident on Instagram through a live video.

In another incident earlier this month, a Bangladeshi passenger was arrested after he reportedly stripped naked and attacked a cabin crew member during a flight from Malaysia.

Malindo Air flight, on which the incident took place, is a Malaysian subsidiary of an Indonesian company which declined to confirm details of the alleged incident, but said in a statement a "disruptive passenger" had been tied up on the flight to Dhaka, Bangladesh, and was arrested on arrival.

The 20-year-old man, said to be a student of Malaysia University, took off his clothes mid-air and began watching pornography on his laptop, several reports said then. Initially, when asked by a crew member, he put his clothes back on. However, he later attempted to hug a female cabin crew member and when his advances were rejected, he allegedly became aggressive and attacked a stewardess.

The cabin crew with the help of other passengers reportedly managed to subdue the man and tied his hands with a piece of cloth for the rest of the flight.