Man unzips pant, molests woman mid-air on BLR-Mumbai flight, arrested on landing

The woman passenger reportedly woke up with a start, when she felt the man touching her inappropriately.

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The airport police in Mumbai sent a 31-year-old man behind bars on Friday, for allegedly flashing and inappropriately touching a co-passenger on board a Bengaluru-Mumbai flight on June 27.

The accused has been identified as Sabeen Hamza, and he was booked under Section 354, 354 (1) (A) and 509 of IPC, which deal with molestation and outraging the modesty of a woman.

Quoting police sources, the Times of India reported that the woman passenger, who was asleep on Tuesday morning, woke up suddenly, when she felt Hamza touching her inappropriately.

Following this, the woman raised an alarm as she also saw Hamza trying to zip his trousers.

Reports add that the crew warned Hamza and later handed him over to airport security once the flight landed in Mumbai.

Security officials along with the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) took Hamza to the airport police station, where he was formally arrested.

The name of the airline is still unclear.

This incident comes barely two weeks after a man on board an IndiGo flight from Hyderabad to Delhi, was caught masturbating.

The incident came to light after a co-passenger sitting beside him, complained to the crew.

The man, identified as Ramesh Chand, was handed over to the police and arrested after the flight landed in Delhi.

When the woman alerted the crew, she was allotted a different seat, and the man was asked to clean himself in the washroom.

The Delhi Police had charged him under Section 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) and 345A (sexual harassment) of the IPC.

The first such high-profile incident occurred in 2006, when then Kerala PWD Minister P J Joseph, was forced to resign, after a woman had accused him of misbehaving with her in an aircraft.

The woman had alleged that she was repeatedly touched by Joseph, sitting in the seat behind her, when the aircraft was in the air.

Such incidents of harrasement are apparently common, as TNM had earlier spoken to several flight attendants, who narrated their version of incidents that frequently happen mid-air.

Read: Sickos we meet mid-air: Flight attendants narrate horrors of in-flight harassment