A wheelchair-bound passenger who took a flight to Delhi from the Kolkata airport on January 31 evening said she felt “angry and humiliated” after being allegedly asked twice to stand up by a security person at the frisking counter despite her condition.
The woman — a lawyer by profession — has also alleged that for a crucial period of time, the female assistant who was supposed to help her with the wheelchair was not around.
Arushi Singh, 33, a resident of Gurgaon, who travels frequently to Kolkata for work, shared her experience with The Telegraph on Thursday.
My friends came to drop me at the airport (on Wednesday evening). I could not connect with the airline number where I could have asked for a wheelchair. So I was left all by myself. It was already 6.05pm and my flight was at 7.30pm. Thankfully, a CISF person who was at the gate of the terminal wheeled me inside and took me till the counter of the airline.
At the counter, I asked for an assistant who could help me with the wheelchair till I boarded the flight.
A woman was assigned. She helped me relocate myself to the cabin wheelchair, while my wheelchair was being packed and checked in.
She took me to the security clearance area and left me. There was a woman security person at the kiosk who asked me to stand up.
I told her, I was unable to stand. At this, she said: “Bas do minute ke liye khade ho jao (Just stand up for two minutes).”
I lost my calm and shouted at her that I have had this condition since childhood and that under no circumstances I could stand up or walk. After that she did not utter a single word. I kept sitting in the wheelchair.
I was feeling infuriated because of the humiliation.
Once the security check was done, I realised that the woman was not going to help me at all. The wheels of the cabin wheelchair were too large for someone sitting on them to operate them. I was stuck.
With a lot of difficulty, I pushed myself out of the kiosk by pressing my hand against the nearest wall.
I again found my assistant, who had left me outside the kiosk and started attending to other passengers. She took over and helped me board the flight in time.
I have been coming to Kolkata for work since 2022. Mobility has been a problem in this city — be it in the hotels where I stay, where there are stairs before one could reach the elevator, or at public places. But I have never faced a situation like this where someone has asked me to stand up, not once but twice.
Officialspeak
A CISF officer at the airport said they have seen Arushi’s posts on her X handle and scanned the footage and found a wheelchair-bound woman.
“We are yet to get her flight details. We tried to see CCTV footage of the time she would have come for the security check,” said the official.
“We have asked the woman constable who was at the security clearance whether she had asked the passenger to stand up. She (the constable) said she had not asked her to stand up but asked her if she could do so. In that footage, a woman passenger is seen standing up for 55 seconds. We are not sure whether she is the same passenger (as Arushi Singh). The matter is being investigated,” the CISF officer said.
An official at the airport said: “When assistants take wheelchair-bound passengers to the security kiosk, they have to leave the passenger for a while because they, too, need to undergo security check.”