New Delhi: Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Mahua Moitra has alleged that she was harassed by a group of co-passengers onboard an IndiGo flight to Delhi from Kolkata on Thursday.
The group of male passengers allegedly shouted slogans targeting her party and filmed her inside the aircraft after it landed in Delhi, she alleged.
Mahua was on her way to Delhi to attend a meeting of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence, she posted on X.
She was seated on seat 1F on IndiGo flight 6E 719 when “4-6 men boarded in a group & leered at me & went to back of plane,” Mahua alleged, as reported by The Indian Express.
After the aircraft landed, and before the doors opened, the group began shouting slogans and recording videos inside the plane, she further alleged.
“ALERT! i travelled to Delhi today on official work to attend meeting of Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence. Was on seat 1F on 6E 719. 4-6 men boarded in a group & leered at me & went to back of plane. When flight landed & before doors opened this is what they did & filmed it. This is no ‘citizen anger’. This is harassment & violates my safety in an aircra
ft,” Mahua wrote on X.
Several men can be heard raising slogans including “Jai Shri Ram,” “chor chor TMC chor (TMC is a party of thieves),” and “pishi chor, bhaipo chor (the aunt and her nephew are thieves),” apparently referring to Mamata Banerjee and Abhishek Banerjee, in a video shared by her.
“Trinamooler shob chor (Everybody in the Trinamool is a thief),” the group shouted.
Mahua tagged IndiGo, Union Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu and others in her post and urged the airline to identify the passengers involved.
“No way that these louts can get away with this harassment inside an airplane. @IndiGo6E find your crew report, name & shame them & put on no fly list,” she added.
The Indian Express has quoted sources as saying that as is the first level of cabin crew’s intervention as per protocol, they verbally asked the passengers to stop chanting, after which the passengers stopped immediately. So, the crew didn’t go for further escalation.
In a separate post on X, Mahua said, “This is BJP culture. Why is anyone surprised? I ignored it & went to my mtng from airport. Then people forwarded me video which the Sanghis were “viralling”. That’s when I called it out. @IndiGo6E tells me they need a formal complaint. Which I am sending.”
She later took to X to inform that a formal complaint was filed.
Considerable tension prevails in West Bengal following the recently concluded Assembly elections, in which the Bharatiya Janata Party defeated the Trinamool Congress.