- Meryl Sebastian
- BBC News-Delhi
Shankar Mishra released a statement through his lawyer stating that he would cooperate with the investigation
The head of Indian company ‘Tata Suns’ has expressed his “sorrow” after allegations that a drunk man urinated on an elderly woman on board his flight.
The incident occurred in late November on board an Air India aircraft operated by Tata Suns.
The news sparked widespread outrage in India and criticism of how the company handled the incident.
The man was arrested on Saturday. And he was fired from his job at the American company “Wells Fargo”.
Tata Suns chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran released a statement on Sunday saying the airline should have been “faster” in its response to the incident.
He added: “We will review and reform every procedure to prevent incidents of an unruly nature and address them if they occur.”
The statement comes a day after Air India Chief Executive Campbell Wilson expressed “regret” and “sorrow” over what customers have experienced due to the “condemned acts of passengers”.
The incident occurred on November 26, in the business class cabin of a flight from New York to New Delhi.
It was alleged that the suspect, Shankar Mishra, was intoxicated and urinated on one of the female passengers, a 72-year-old woman.
“My clothes, shoes and wallet were completely soaked in urine,” the woman wrote in a letter to the head of Tata Suns the next day.
She said she asked the flight crew to change seats, but the answer was that there was no free seat, and she was offered a small staff seat. She claimed the flight crew brought her man—against her will—to her to apologize to her.
She called the trip “traumatic”. She said the airline had only issued a partial refund for her plane ticket.
image copyright YEARS
Mishra when he was arrested by the police
An American doctor, Shugata Bhattacharjee, who was seated next to Shankar Mishra on the plane, confirmed the woman’s statement.
The doctor told NDTV he had sent a written complaint to the airline the day of the crash, but “it didn’t help”.
The airline has asked an internal committee to investigate the complaint against Mishra.
Two weeks later, the company imposed a 30-day travel ban on Mishra, the length of which was among the factors sparking outrage once word got out.
At the request of the woman’s family, the company finally filed a police report on 28 December.
A week later, he filed a report with India’s aviation regulator, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation.
Last week, the authority issued memos to officials and flight crew, saying it had failed to comply with its rules on handling a rowdy passenger on board. He also said the crew’s behavior was “unprofessional”.
The airline then removed the pilot and four crew members from the flight crew list.
The airline’s chief executive, Campbell Wilson, has promised to put in place a strict reporting system for disruptive behavior at Air India.
Wells Fargo released a statement on Friday saying it had terminated Shankar Mishra’s contract and was “cooperating with law enforcement.”
Mishra was arrested on Saturday in Bengaluru and charged with sexual harassment and misconduct.
Prior to his arrest, Mishra released a statement through his lawyer, stating that he had washed the woman’s purse and clothes, two days after the incident.
His statement read: “The lady’s ongoing complaint was only in relation to the adequate compensation paid by the airline, and she had filed a subsequent complaint for that on 20 December 2022.”
He added: “Data recorded by the flight crew before the Investigative Committee show that there is no eyewitness to the crash.
He underlined that “the defendant has full confidence in the country’s judicial system and will cooperate in the investigative procedures”.
