New Delhi: Since February 24, at least two incidents have come to light when physically challenged persons had to face discrimination and humiliation at the hands of airlines. The Disabled Rights Group (DRG) has written to the civil aviation secretary, asking him to call a meeting of all airlines and other stakeholders to "chalk out an action plan with strict measures and punitive action to ensure such incidents do not happen again and the rights of people with disabilities are not violated with such impunity".
In the first case, SpiceJet publically apologized to the 40-year-old Jeeja Ghosh, suffering from cerebral palsy, after the pilot refused to let her fly. However, groups working with disability have expressed "deep anguish" at the action taken by the airline and the civil aviation ministry in this regard.
Javed Abidi, convenor of DRG said that despite rules regarding differently-abled passengers already in place, no airline seems to be following them or even aware of them. "SpiceJet carried out an inquiry into the incident which it has termed an 'inconvenience' for the passenger that too caused 'inadvertently'. However, to a person suffering from cerebral palsy, it was humiliation. After this, the airline made the magnanimous offer of contributing Rs 1 lakh to charity which works towards improving the understanding of the disease. Will this be all for flouting of rules and humiliation of a human being?" asked Abidi.
03/03/12 Neha Lalchandani/Times of India
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