The woman has detailed her “appalling experience” in her letter to Air India, which is part of the FIR.
New Delhi:
After a drunk passenger urinated on a woman flyer in the business class of an Air India flight last year, the crew brought him to her seat and forced her to face him as he begged to be spared arrest, a document reveals. The woman was “stunned” when the offender was brought before her and he “started crying and profusely apologising”.
Mumbai businessman Shankar Mishra begged the woman to not report him to the police, saying he was a family man and that he did not want his wife and child to be affected by the incident, according to the FIR (First Information Report) filed by Air India.
The woman wrote to the Air India group chairman, N Chandrasekharan, on November 27, a day after the incident on the New York-Delhi flight. But Air India filed a police complaint only on January 4. The airline claimed it didn’t go to the police as it felt both sides had “settled the matter”.
On November 26, Shankar Mishra, allegedly drunk, unzipped and urinated on the woman. He remained at the spot, exposing himself, until another passenger asked him to return to his seat. An airport alert has been put out for Shankar Mishra, who has been evading arrest.
The woman has detailed her “appalling experience” in her letter to Air India, which is part of the FIR.
She said when she complained to the crew that her seat, clothes, bag and shoes were soaked in urine, the flight staff “refused to touch them”, sprayed her bag and shoes with disinfectant and gave her a set of pyjamas and socks. When she asked for a change of seat, she was told that no seats were available, though another passenger said there were.
“The flight crew told me that the pilot had vetoed giving me a seat in first class,” she said.
The woman also says though she demanded Shankar Mishra’s arrest immediately on landing, the crew told her he wanted to apologise and brought him to her.
“I stated clearly that I did not want to interact with him or see his face, and that all I wanted was for him to be arrested on arrival. However, the crew brought the offender before me against my wishes and we were made to sit opposite each other in the crew seats. I was stunned when he started crying and profusely apologising to me, begging me not to lodge a complaint against him because he is a family man and did not want his wife and child to be affected by this incident. In my already distraught state, I was further disoriented by being made to confront and negotiate with the perpetrator of the horrific incident at close quarters. I told him his actions were inexcusable, but in the face of his pleading and begging in front of me, and my own shock and trauma, I found it difficult to insist on his arrest or to press charges against him,” the woman wrote.
The airline also passed on her phone number to Shankar Mishra to pay for her shoes and drycleaning, which she returned saying she did not want his money.
She said her son-in-law sent a complaint to Air India on November 27 and the airline had agreed to reimburse the ticket. However, she said, she had received only a partial refund that was “hardly sufficient compensation for my traumatic experience”.
She said in her letter that the Air India crew was “deeply unprofessional”, failed to protect the safety and dignity of passengers, did not show good judgement about how much alcohol to serve a passenger and was not proactive in handling a sensitive and traumatic situation.
Air India CEO Campbell Wilson has written to the staff asking them to report improper behaviour on flights at the earliest “even if the matter appears to have been settled”.
“The repulsion felt by the affected passenger is totally understandable and we share her distress,” Mr Wilson wrote in the internal memo.
For now, Shankar Mishra only faces a 30-day flight ban.
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