The in-flight slogan shouting of Youth Congress in an IndiGo flight carrying Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has come to the notice of Union minister for civil aviation Jyotiraditya Scindia on Wednesday. "We are looking into this & will take action soon," Scindia said in a tweet on Wednesday.
He was responding to Congress MP Hibi Eden's tweet questioning why LDF convener E P Jayarajan was spared. An in-flight video that went viral shows Jayarajan pushing the two Youth Congress workers raising slogans against the Chief Minister.
In his tweet with the video attached, Hibi says: "This video clearly shows LDF Convener EP Jayarajan manhandling and pushing 2 passengers who raised slogans. Why is it that @IndiGo6E, @DGCAIndia, @JM_Scindia are not registering an FIR against him? Is justice selective in the new India? #ArrestJayarajan."
Earlier in the day, a preliminary report filed by the Airport Manager seems to have reiterated the CPM's charge that the Youth Congress workers had violent intent. "...as soon as the seat sign went off (after landing), the said passengers (YC workers) immediately stood up from their respective seats and rushed towards the Honourable Chief Minister shouting slogans in their vernacular language. Upon seeing this, one of the passengers travelling with the honourable CM intervened," IndiGo's preliminary report said.
The last line was a reference to Jayarajan and it sounded as if his intervention had protected the Chief Minister. The Airport Manager's report was handed over to the Station House Officer, Valiyathura Police Station, Thiruvananthapuram.
Opposition leader V D Satheesan was livid. He called the report "fake and frivolous". Satheesan then shot off a letter to Varun Dwivedi, Associate Vice President, Inter Globe Aviation Ltd (IndiGO Airlines), saying that the findings in the report went against eyewitness accounts, including that of Jayarajan.
Jayarajan, in his first response to a news channel, had said that the slogan-shouting began after the Chief Minister left the aircraft.
Meanwhile, IndiGo has formed an internal committee chaired by a retired judge to probe the incident. The IC will also have an IndiGo representative and also a representative of passengers.
