An Italian passenger was tied to her seat by the crew of an Indian airline after she allegedly punched one employee and spit on another.
The woman, who had taken an Abu Dhabi to Mumbai Vistara flight, was detained and later released on police bail.
The accusations have been refuted by her attorney, who called them “false stories.”
However, Vistara claimed that due to the woman’s “continued disorderly conduct and violent behavior,” its staff had to restrain her.
According to a report in The Times of India, a Vistara employee claimed in a police report that the passenger punched them and spit on their colleague.
According to the complaint, the crew member objected after the woman left her economy class seat to sit in business class.
The complaint also accuses the woman of “stripping and littering the plane”.
Vistara said in a statement that the flight’s captain “issued a warning card and made a decision to restrain the customer” because of her behavior.
The woman’s lawyer, Prabhakar Tripathi, told BBC that she was “uncomfortable” in her allotted seat and “requested to be moved to a vacant seat” and that caused a “disagreement” with the crew. He said she was also allegedly not allowed to use the bathroom due to turbulence.
“She was later allowed to go to the washroom but was tied up on return,” Mr. Tripathi said. He also denied media reports which quoted police officers as saying that the woman was drunk.
A senior Mumbai police official told reporters that the woman was “booked for misbehaving”. “We served her a notice and produced her before the court, following which she was allowed to go,” said Dikshit Gedam, a deputy commissioner of police.
After a man was detained in January for allegedly peeing on a female passenger, scrutiny of passenger misconduct on airplanes increased in India. The incident led to criticism of how the airline, Air India, handled the situation.
Since then, a number of alleged incidents of disorderly conduct on board other Indian flights have been reported.
