A day after a video emerged showing a man being slapped on board an IndiGo flight from Mumbai to Kolkata, his family had a brief scare as they could not reach him for hours. However, it later came to light that the man, from Assam’s Silchar, had taken a train from Kolkata to his state, instead of a second flight like he was scheduled to.
ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW VIDEO
The family of Ahmed Hussain Mazumder told The Indian Express that they had last spoken to him before he boarded his flight from Mumbai, but panic struck when he did not arrive on the connecting flight from Kolkata to Silchar.
“He works in a shop in Mumbai, but his father has cancer and his condition has been deteriorating. So the boy was coming to meet his father. Before boarding the flight in Mumbai on Friday morning, he spoke to his wife, father and mother, telling them that he would be there soon and told his wife to pick him up. His wife, brother and aunt were waiting for him at the Silchar airport. The flight’s arrival time was 1:25 pm, and after that, all the passengers came out of the airport, but not him. In the meantime, they had seen the video of him being hit. They asked the airport authorities where he was, but they didn’t know. Since then, they had been trying to call him. His phone was ringing, but he was not answering. So we have informed the Katigorah police station,” said his uncle Joglu Mazumder on Saturday afternoon.
Katigorah police station’s officer in charge, Joseph Keivom, said on Saturday evening, “We have received information that the individual arrived at Barpeta in Assam after the flight landed in Kolkata. He took the train to Barpeta and is now on his way to Silchar.”
The accused, Hafijul Rehman, was detained by the police in Kolkata after the flight landed on Friday. He was later released. It was reported he slapped the man while the latter was having a panic attack.
Following the viral video, IndiGo stated that they had initiated the process of filing an “incident report.” The incident will be reviewed by a committee to determine if the passenger should be put on a “no-fly” list. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation has also been informed of the matter, the airline said.
A senior officer with the Bidhannagar police said yesterday, “The passenger was detained and later released.” In a post on X, IndiGo also condemned the passenger’s “unruly behaviour”, adding that such actions are “completely unacceptable.”
