Ex-employee who is claiming to be a whistleblower instigated attack at Delhi Airport, says IndiGo President Aditya Ghosh

Even as the video of a passenger being manhandled by IndiGo staffer goes viral on social media, the President of India's largest airline by market share has blamed the ex-employee who was claiming to be a whistleblower. In an email response to Business Today, Aditya Ghosh said, "The ex employee who is claiming to the whistleblower is the one who was screaming at the customer and shouting 'Roklay Roklay Isay' preventing the customer from boarding the bus. He was 4 years senior to the other two employees. And instead of acting maturely, he is the one who instigated the incident. He is the one who prevented the customer from departing in the bus. You can hear his voice in the first parts of the video. He was a cargo employee. He had no business being there. And had no business shouting at the customer."

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"I personally called and apologised to the customer three weeks ago. Not now. But on the very same night. We immediately terminated the errant employee. The video of this incident came to our attention and we took action immediately. We did not wait for the video to be played out in the media," Ghosh added.

A video of a passenger being manhandled by IndiGo staffers had earlier emerged. The passenger has been identified as Rajeev Katyal and the incident took place at Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport on October 15. The video was captured by an airline employee. In the video, Katyal can be seen arguing with some ground officials and telling them to do their job properly instead of ordering the passengers around. The officials then stop him from boarding the shuttle and push him around. When he fights back, he is pinned to the ground by around three officials.

"Whatever may have been the provocation, our staff were completely out of line and didn't follow laid down procedures. Under the code of conduct violation, this incident was investigated by the designated committee and stern action was taken against the staff. He is the exact opposite of what IndiGo's customer service aims to be," Ghosh further stated.

Katyal had told a TV channel, "I was standing in the shade of a plane when a ground staff started shouting at me in a very rude manner. I asked him why don't you arrange the third bus for which we are waiting. Meanwhile, when the bus came two people said let's teach him a lesson and one of them pulled me out of the bus."

On Tuesday Aviation Minister Jayant Sinha spoke to IndiGo's founder Rahul Bhatia and sought a detailed report of the incident. He also added that once Katyal files a criminal complaint against the employees, they would lose their security clearance for airport passes and will no longer be able to work in the aviation industry. 

The minister also condemned the incident and called it "deplorable and unfortunate" in a series of tweets. In an attempt to inform citizens about how to effectively handle such a situation, Jayant Sinha tweeted:

You can watch the video here: