The Delhi Police on Tuesday registered an FIR against the immigration officer who had allegedly verbally sexually harassed a passenger at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in the national Capital. The FIR was filed at IGIA Police Station under Sections 354A, 354D and 506 of the IPC after police received an email complaint from the victim. “We have registered an FIR and taken up investigation after receiving the victim’s complaint through email. Everything will be done as per the law,” said a senior police official.
The immigration officer, identified as Vinod Kumar, allegedly asked the woman some sexually explicit questions while checking her passport and other travel documents after she reached the national Capital from Bengaluru on her way to Hong Kong.
The Bengaluru-based woman has alleged that she was verbally sexually harassed by Kumar. “I would like to complain about an immigration officer who verbally sexually harassed me not only during the immigration process at the desk but also by following me along the travelator between domestic and international transfer. This happened on March 19 at 9.30 PM,” the woman said in her complaint.
The woman has also alleged that the immigration officer asked many unpleasant and private questions while clearing the decks at the immigration counter. According to the complaint, she was asked questions like, how many children do you have, do you drink, do you smoke, do you eat chicken, do you sleep with other men when your husband is at work. Not once or twice, but he asked her four times if she had undergone a surgery for birth control. He even asked her whether she would like to have her third child with him. Taking cognisance of the incident, the Home Ministry had placed the immigration officer under suspension with immediate effect and ordered a departmental inquiry.
The father-in-law of the victim, a former head of a Karnataka commerce and industry body, in his online complaint mailed to the Commissioner, Bureau Of Immigration, Delhi, PK Bhardwaj, said his daughter-in-law lodged an oral complaint on her return from Hong Kong on March 23 at the airport, along with her husband and son.