Headlines
Immigration official suspended for sexually harassing passenger
New Delhi, March 27
An immigration officer has
been suspended for alleged verbal sexual harassment of a woman
passenger who took a flight to Hong Kong on March 18 from Delhi, a home
ministry official said on Friday.
"The immigration officer has
been suspended and a departmental inquiry has been initiated," the
official told IANS on the condition of anonymity.
Speaking to
Times Now, the woman, a homemaker whose identity was not revealed,
claimed that immigration officer Vinod Kumar harassed her by asking
"several uncomfortable personal questions".
The woman alleged
that she was at the immigration counter before she boarded the flight
for Hong Kong, where she went to meet her husband.
She said the
immigration officer not only harassed her during the immigration process
at the desk, but also by following her along at the escalator between
the domestic and international transfer.
"He asked me questions
like how many children I have, do I drink, do I smoke or eat chicken. He
also asked me whether I sleep with other men when my husband is at
work," the woman told the news channel.
"Not once or twice, but
he asked me four times if I had undergone a surgery for birth control.
He even asked whether I would like to have my third child with him," she
said.
The woman's father-in-law has filed a complaint with
Commissioner, Bureau Of Immigration, Delhi, P.K. Bhardwaj via e-mail on
March 23 after the woman returned from her Hong Kong trip.
After
the media highlighted the issue, the home ministry, under which the
immigration department falls, took action by suspending the immigration
official and set up a departmental inquiry.