CHENNAI: A passenger who supposedly smoked in a Doha-to-Chennai flight has been handed over to Chennai airport police by the Indigo airlines crew. The airline crew in its police complaint on Tuesday late night said that R Mohammed Ifthikar, aged 32, a native Madurai district in Tamil Nadu, picked up an argument with the crew after it found out that he was smoking in the toilet on board.
"He was travelling from Dubai to Chennai. He had been working as a driver in Dubai for the past four years and was returning home," said a police officer in the airport police station.
On Tuesday night immediately after the crew served dinner to the passengers, Ifthikar is believed to have gone to the rest room and started smoking. The crew members were apparently alerted by the smoke sensors in the rest room and told Ifthikar he cannot smoke during the flight. Soon an argument broke between a crew member Gargi Gupta and Ifthikar.
Soon after the plane landed at the Chennai airport around 11 pm, Ifthikar was picked up for questioning by the airport police and he was detained in the police station the entire night.
"Based on the complaint, we questioned the passenger and we are yet to decide under which section of the IPC he can be booked," said a senior police officer.
The police have made an entry in the Community Service Register (a record maintained in the police station on the complaints received by them).