Swedish National Arrested In Mumbai For Allegedly Molesting IndiGo Staff

This is the 8th unruly airline passenger arrested in India in the past three months, according to officials.

A 63-year-old Swedish national was arrested in Mumbai on Thursday for allegedly molesting a cabin crew member while drunk on an IndiGo flight from Bangkok, news agency ANI reported. The accused, Klas Erik Harald Jonas Westberg, was handed over to Mumbai police by the airline staff when the flight landed at Mumbai Airport on Thursday.

The passenger allegedly began to misbehave when meals were being served, Times Of India reported, adding that he kept doing it till the flight landed. At one stage, the 24-year-old cabin crew member alerted the captain and read out a red warning card to Westberg, TOI said.

Narrating the incident in the complaint, the cabin crew member told the national daily, “The problem began when I informed Westberg (seated on 28-E), who was drunk, that there was no seafood onboard. I served him chicken meals and asked for his ATM card to make a payment through the POS machine. On the pretext of swiping the card, the passenger held my hand. I pulled it back and asked him to enter the card PIN. This time he crossed the limit … getting up, he molested me in front of other passengers. When I shouted and screamed that he was misbehaving, he returned to his seat.”

The accused’s lawyer, however, said that he suffers from health issues and his body shivers. “He cannot hold anything without help. He tried to hold the POS payment card machine when he touched the cabin crew. He did not touch her intentionally,” Times of India quoted him saying.

This is the 8th unruly airline passenger arrested in India in the past three months, according to officials.