Indian police have arrested an unruly airline passenger following a complaint by a woman on board an Air India flight from New York who said that he urinated on her.
Shankar Mishra was picked up by police in the southern city of Bengaluru and brought to the Indian capital on Saturday, New Delhi Police spokesperson Suman Nalva said on Sunday.
The Times of India newspaper cited Mishra as saying he was drunk and could not believe what he had done.
A New Delhi court sent him to prison for 14 days as police investigate the complaint accusing Mishra of outraging the modesty of a woman during the New York-New Delhi flight. If convicted, he faces up to three years in prison.
Sugata Bhattacharjee, another passenger on the flight, told reporters he saw Mishra consuming excessive liquor and that he was talking incoherently, asking him the same question about his family several times.
On Wednesday, Air India said in a statement that it had banned a male passenger for 30 days in compliance with regulations following the incident on November 26. The airline, which is owned by the Tata Group, said it had reported the matter to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), India’s air safety watchdog, for further action.
