Air India pee-gate: Shankar Mishra, the man who urinated on woman, arrested in Bengaluru

Shankar Mishra, who is accused of urinating on an elderly woman while drunk on an Air India flight in November 2022, has been arrested from Bengaluru late on Friday by the Delhi Police. He was reportedly on the run, and the police had issued a lookout notice to trace him.

Misha, 34, had been frequently changing his locations to evade his arrest. The Delhi police had been conducting raids in Mumbai and Bengaluru at Mishra's offices.

The Delhi police had deployed a team in Bengaluru to catch Mishra, after getting some substantial leads on his whereabouts. 

Delhi Police said they had issued the Look Out Circular (LOC) against Mishra after he refused to join the investigation.

Mishra has been booked under Indian Penal Code sections 294 (obscene act in public place), 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) and 510 (misconduct in public by a drunken person) as well as under Aircraft Rules.

Mishra, who was on a New York-Delhi Air India flight on November 26, allegedly unzipped his pants and urinated on an elderly woman in business class. He later said that he had apologised to the woman and begged her not to report the case to the police, saying it would impact his wife and child. 

The matter came to light when the passenger expressed her displeasure in a letter to Tata Group Chairman N Chandrasekharan, accusing the Air India cabin crew of showing extreme insensitivity to the circumstance.

She said that the crew members gave her a new set of pyjamas and slippers only after she had complained that Mishra's urine was seeping into her clothes. The senior co-passenger said that she was forced to confront Mishra mid-air as soon as he began to sober up from his drunken state.

On Friday, Mishra's lawyers claimed he had exchanged messages with the woman who filed the complaint, and even paid her Rs 15,000 as compensation, and got her belongings cleaned. The woman's daughter had reportedly returned the money after a month, saying they couldn't accept it.

Earlier this week, Air India filed a police complaint and said as there was "no further flare-up or confrontation", and "respecting the perceived wishes of the female passenger", the crew elected not to summon law enforcement upon landing. Mishra was banned from flying for 30 days, but it triggered outrage on social media, where users said it was not enough. 

On the other hand, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) issued show-cause notices to Air India officials and cabin crew of the New York-Delhi flight and asked why action should not be taken against them for "dereliction" of duty while handling the November 26 'pee-gate' incident.

The aviation regulator said Air India's conduct appeared to be "unprofessional", and that prima facie, it seemed that provisions related to the handling of unruly passengers were not complied with.

Fired from job

On Friday, Mishra was fired by his employer Wells Fargo on Friday. “Wells Fargo holds employees to the highest standards of professional and personal behavior and we find these allegations deeply disturbing. This individual has been terminated from Wells Fargo. We are cooperating with law enforcement and ask that any additional inquiries be directed to them," the American bank said in a statement. 

He worked as vice president of the India chapter of the multinational firm, which is headquartered in California. His offices were in Mumbai and Bangalore. 

According to Mishra's LinkedIn profile, the accused is a management professional who graduated from Narsee Monjee Institute and went on to work with the leading American financial services company, Citi Bank for 10 years where he started as a trainee analyst and rose to the position of Vice President. 

Air India 'pee-gate': Flight incident turns into PR nightmare for airline

Also Read: Air India incident: Matter was settled, woman compensated, says man who urinated on female passenger