In an unprecedented occurrence, four major airlines in India have decided to ban a standup comedian, because he dared to ask some questions to a journalist inside a flight.
Twitter users are calling it hypocrisy, whereas a segment of social media is defining this as an apt punishment for ‘harassing’ a celebrity journalist.
But what does DGCA rules state?
Kunal Kamra Calls Arnab Goswami As ‘Coward’
Kunal Kamra, a relatively popular standup comedian best known for his ‘Shut Up Ya Kunal’ series was travelling in an Indigo flight from New Delhi to Lucknow.
Republic TV founder, and popular journalist Arnab Goswami was also travelling in that same flight.
Out of no-where, Kunal started asking some questions to Arnab, related with the unfortunate Rohit Vemula suicide case.
Arnab refused to answer, and called him ‘mentally unstable’ person, and put on his earphones. Then, Kunal launched a sctathening monologue against Arnab, calling him ‘coward’ and more.
Kunal shared on Twitter, why he did that:
I did this for my hero…
— Kunal Kamra (@kunalkamra88) January 28, 2020
I did it for Rohit pic.twitter.com/aMSdiTanHo
Met Arnab Goswami on a flight & gave him a monologue about his ‘journalism’
— Kunal Kamra (@kunalkamra88) January 28, 2020
All he did was call me mentally unstable & after sometime I had no choice but to return to my seat.
The entire flight I’ll keep pretending to use the loo just to tell him he’s piece of SHIT
F*CK Arnab
In their response, Indigo Airlines announced that they have banned Kunal Kamra for 6 months, and soon, Air India, Spice Jet and GoAir joined them in banning Kunal from flying for 6 months.
#FlyAI: In view of the incident onboard @IndiGo6E, Air India wishes to inform that conduct of Person concerned is unacceptable.With a view to discourage such behavior onboard flts, Mr Kunal Kamra is suspended from flying on any Air India flt until further notice. @HardeepSPuri .
— Air India (@airindiain) January 28, 2020
SpiceJet has decided to suspend Mr. Kunal Kamra from flying with the airline till further notice. @MoCA_GoI @DGCAIndia @HardeepSPuri @IndiGo6E
— SpiceJet (@flyspicejet) January 29, 2020
@MoCA_GoI @HardeepSPuri In light of the recent incident on board 6E 5317 from Mumbai to Lucknow, we wish to inform that we are suspending Mr. Kunal Kamra from flying with IndiGo for a period of six months, as his conduct onboard was unacceptable behaviour. 1/2
— IndiGo (@IndiGo6E) January 28, 2020
GoAir has suspended Mr. Kunal Kamra from flying with the airline till further notice @MoCA_GoI @DGCAIndia @HardeepSPuri @IndiGo6E
— GoAir (@goairlinesindia) January 29, 2020
Is This Hypocrisy? Twitter Users Ask
As per Directorate General of Civil Aviation rules, in case of any unruly behavior by a passenger in-flight, there has to be a committee formed, which shall probe the incident.
Based on the finding, there is a three tier-punishment structure:
3 months ban for using foul language inside the aircraft; 6 months ban for physical assault or sexually derogatory language; upto 2 yrs ban or lifetime ban for damaging property.
However, in this case, Kunal has received 6 months of ban.
And since the flight in which this incident happened was Indigo, there is no logic in Spice Jet, Go Air and Air India imposing ban on Kunal.
Some Twitter users have described this as hypocrisy on the part of the airlines.
Here are some tweets:
Dear Journalist, It’s easy to abuse politicians but difficult to live their life. We don’t hv any privacy anywhere but u hv. We are into a great thankless job of serving people & u r in bootlicking job of pleasing ur paymasters. Who’s brat of Whom country knows it inside out? https://t.co/eJiifxKxHP
— Tejashwi Yadav (@yadavtejashwi) January 29, 2020
Banning Kunal for 6 months show the hypocrisy, irrationality and shamelessness of @IndiGo6E. They are slaves of his master’s voice. Clearly it’s a politically coerced conspiracy. They are including in social discrimination. I quit flying with them for 6 months. #BoycottIndigo https://t.co/89hRl6y1Wr
— ?? Let us save our India (@KrishnamHQ) January 29, 2020
It’s been over 2 months and they haven’t taken any action against Pragya Thakur who created a scene using her power to circumvent flight safety rules. Didn’t even take them a full day to suspend Kunal Kamra.
— BullBull (@DahiiBhalla) January 29, 2020
Bunch of shameless, spineless cowards. https://t.co/oDjXwOJmDo
Sad to see where are going our democracy…..all flight are suspend kunal kamra bcoz he dare to ask only right question… sadhvi pragya was done also wrong why not take any action till now.all are in feet
— Babu Siddiqui (@Babu46433818) January 29, 2020
*Kunal Kamra verbally heckles Arnab on Indigo Flight*
— Ali Syed (@ali_syedd) January 29, 2020
– Spice Jet suspends him from flying with them.
*Sadhvi Pragya delays the spice Jet flight by 45 mins and had altercation with their staff*
– No action taken by Spice Jet.
Some Twitter Users Support This Action
At the same time, some Twitter users also supported these airlines for banning Kunal Kamra:
Great step by Indian Railways. Mentally unstable passengers like #KunalKamra who pose a threat to fellow travellers must be banned on all means of transport. ??? https://t.co/i4IHzOsdbr
— Sir Jadeja fan (@SirJadeja) January 28, 2020
There is freedom to shit too, on board the aircraft. But you have to go to toilet for that, can’t do it in aisle.#kunalkamra https://t.co/3ta2alM0CY
— Mahesh Jagga (@MaheshJagga) January 28, 2020
#KunalKamra is a threat to all co passengers of an aircraft. Hence request all other airlines should ban him. #ArrestKunalKamra
— Ashoke Pandit (@ashokepandit) January 28, 2020
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