Bangladeshi man arrested for alleged sexual harassment of flight attendant on Muscat-Mumbai flight

A 30-year-old Bangladeshi man was arrested after allegedly flashing and attempting to masturbate in front of an airhostess in a nearly full flight.

The accused, Mohammed Dulal, was on a Muscat to Mumbai Vistara flight, which landed at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport at 4:30am on Thursday. Dulal was supposed to take a connecting flight from Mumbai to Dhaka subsequently.

"Half an hour before the scheduled landing, as the 22-year-old flight attendant was completing the dinner service and came to Dulal's row, he jumped across from his seat (19E) and reached out to hug her and attempted to kiss her, but the woman backed away," said a police officer.

The startled flight attendant then signalled to a male colleague for assistance. He tried to restrain and pull Dulal away, while he was still clutching her hand. "He became abusive when the flight attendants asked him to return to his seat. Before fellow passengers could understand what was happening, the accused unzipped and flashed at the flight attendant," added the officer.

Dulal then started touching himself but was stopped by a flight supervisor and other passengers onboard. "By this time, information about the incident had reached the pilot, who declared on the PA system that Dulal had become an unruly passenger by not obeying the flight attendant and supervisor's instructions," said the policeman.

Once the cabin crew managed to restrain him, with the assistance of passengers, all the seats around him were vacated and the fliers were given alternate seating. He continued to hurl abuses at everyone around him.

"When the flight landed, he was handed over to the security personnel who called us to inform about the incident," said the officer. Dulal has been booked under sections 354 (assault or criminal force on a woman with the intent to outrage her modesty), 354 (A) (sexual harassment), 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) of the Indian Penal Code and the relevant sections of Aircraft Rules, 1937.

After arrest, he was produced before the Andheri metropolitan magistrate court, which has remanded him to three days in police custody. The Bangladesh consulate has also been apprised of the incident.