On Tuesday, a Bengaluru man who was set to fly from Mumbai to Bengaluru was arrested by police for allegedly molesting a 20-year-old female Indigo in-flight staff while boarding the aircraft. According to a ToI report, the accused 28-year-old Raju Gangappa continues to be in police custody after he was produced in an Andheri court on Wednesday. Mumbai Airport police have booked him under IPC Section 354 (outraging the modesty of a woman).
“The flyer pressed my back and when I retaliated, he abused me verbally. I informed the incident to my senior before the flyer was offloaded with his baggage,” TOI quoted the complaint written by the survivor.
The incident occurred on board flight 6E-825 which was set to depart Mumbai at 9:30 pm but was delayed by half an hour due to the process of arresting the accused. Soon after she was allegedly molested, the crew member approached the flight superintendent who in turn got in touch with the Central Industrial Security Force. The CISF detained Gangappa before handing him to jurisdictional police.
“He was handed over to the local police by the CISF officials and booked for molestation. He was produced in court on Wednesday,” a police officer told Mumbai Mirror.
According to reports, Gangappa was in Mumbai for business and was flying back.
This is not the first time, an incident of sexual assault or harassment has been reported onboard a flight. The issue gained prominence when in December 2017 Dangal actor Zaira Wasim detailed a harrowing experience of being allegedly molested by a middle-aged man while she was on a flight from Delhi to Mumbai. The accused was allegedly placing his foot on her armrest from behind and rubbing his foot over her back and neck.
Later in January, a 34-year-old Indian man was arrested in the US for allegedly unbuttoning clothes of a woman passenger and putting his hands inside her pants.