This time a foreign activist working with UN has been given memorable hospitality. This is another in the series. NEW DELHI: Hardly three months after Jeeja Ghosh, a teacher who suffers from cerebral palsy, was forced off a flight at the Kolkata airport because the airline felt she was not fit to fly, another passenger with physical disability has alleged that he was manhandled by airline staff on Thursday afternoon. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Disabled-flyer-alleges-harassment-on-Mumbai-Delhi-flight/articleshow/13231697.cms Shuaib Chalklen, special rapporteur on disability with the UN's Commission for Social Development, alleged that he was manhandled and his boarding pass was marked "parallysed (sic)" on the flight from Mumbai to Delhi.
"While checking me in and collecting my boarding pass, an official asked me why I was in a wheelchair. And when I received my boarding pass, the word paralyzed had been scribbled on it," said Chalklen, who has been wheelchair-bound for 35 years. But that was the least of Chalklen's troubles. He said his ordeal began as soon as he went in for the security check. "I was asked to shift from my wheelchair to another, as they refused to conduct the security check with me in my own wheelchair." Chalklen, who was senior policy analyst in the South African president's office from 2006 to 2007, is on a personal visit to India and was travelling on IndiGo's flight 6E 176 on Thursday. He said he repeatedly asked for an aisle wheelchair to move comfortably through the aisle to his seat - 3C. "However, the official kept saying 'OK', and when I did board my flight, I was not provided with it and carried like a sack of potatoes." The Directorate General of Civil Aviation has directed all airlines to provide the facilities, including aisle wheelchairs, required by persons with disability. An angry Chalklen dismissed the DGCA's directions as mere talk: "Do you have any intention of implementing the laws that you make?" He said, "Since my seat was in the third row and there was no aisle wheelchair, they tried accommodating me in the front row. However, the passenger of that seat was not ready to move." Chalklen said he was asked thrice by the airline officials if he could move a little, stand, or walk to another seat, and the negotiation for seats finally ended after 20 minutes when two passengers from the third row were brought to the front row. The harassment faced by Chalklen is the latest in a series of similar incidents. Two cases were reported in February when Jeeja Ghosh, a teacher with cerebral palsy, and Anjlee Agarwal, who suffers from muscular dystrophy, were treated insensitively by airlines. Activist Javed Abidi, convener, Disabled Rights Group (DRG), said they had written to the ministry of civil aviation about Chalklen's experience. TOI tried to find out IndiGo's side of the story but late on Thursday evening, the airline reverted saying it was still checking details of Chalklen's case, and would comment only after verifying all the facts. -- Avinash Shahi M.A. Political Science CPS JNU New Delhi India You can join my group 'World opinion' By hitting enter on http://groups.google.com/group/worldopinion/sub?s=KL4UmBQAAADtinq5nhhn1yahwny9uS1o7bui7rJFiLdJKj94WgW_0Q&hl=en Search for old postings at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ To unsubscribe send a message to [email protected] with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in
