“Will you bear my third child?” is one of the questions he asked.
AB Wire
NEW DELHI: An immigration officer at the New Delhi Indira Gandhi International Airport was suspended after a female traveler alleged he sexually harassed her by asking her obscene questions and following her through the facility.
The unnamed homemaker from Bengaluru was preparing to fly to Hong Kong in order to meet her husband, but before she could board her flight she alleges officer Vinod Kumar subjected her to a slew of invasive, inappropriate, and offensive questions.
According to a copy of the official complaint obtained by CNN-IBN, the 37-year-old woman accused Kumar of flagrantly asking: “How many children do you have? Where have you left them? Do you smoke, do you drink, do you eat chicken, do you have fun with other men when your husband is away? Will you have fun with me? Have you had any birth control surgery? I have two children, my wife doesn’t want more; will you bear my third child?”
He also asked for her phone number so he could visit her in Hong Kong while her husband was away. The woman told NDTV that after Kumar made “verbal sexual advances” and stamped her passport, he proceeded to leave his desk and follow her closely up an escalator.
When the victim and her husband confronted Kumar upon their return to India, he denied making any objectionable comments. The subsequently complained to a senior officer, but all they received was an apology with no consequences implied for Kumar whatsoever. The family of the targeted woman was also later denied access to the CCTV footage of the incident.
Airport authorities finally suspended the offending immigration officer when the woman took her story to the media and her father-in-law pushed to have the complaint accepted by the government’s Bureau of Immigration.