NEW DELHI: American financial services firm Wells Fargo has sacked Shankar Mishra, the vice-president of its entity in India. Mishra, 34, is accused of urinating on a senior female co-passenger and exposing his private parts in the business class of an Air India flight from New York to New Delhi on November 26.
“Wells Fargo holds employees to the highest standards of professional and personal behavior and we find these allegations deeply disturbing. This individual has been terminated from Wells Fargo. We are cooperating with law enforcement and ask that any additional inquiries be directed to them,” the company said in a statement on Friday.
While Mishra is evading an arrest even as the Delhi Police is conducting raids in Bengaluru and Mumbai to nab him, his lawyers have issued a statement saying that the matter between the two parties was settled after the incident.
Ishanee Sharma and Akshat Bajpai, lawyers for Mishra,in a statement said that the lady passenger displayed no intention to lodge a complaint. Mishra’s side claims that the persisting grievance was only with respect to the adequate compensation being paid by the Airline.
They also said that Mishra paid the compensation as agreed between the parties through Paytm on November 28, but after almost a month, on December 19, her daughter returned the money.
This incident came into light after a letter written on November 27 by the affected woman to Tata Group chairman N Chandrasekaran went viral. The letter states the traumatising experience that she had gone through and says that she received limited assistance from the cabin crew when the incident took place. Mishra had left the flight without facing any action from the airline.
The woman in her complaint, which is part of the FIR registered by the Delhi Police, has said that she was made to interact with the offender by the airline crew despite her reluctance. She said that she wanted Mishra to be arrested on his arrival at the Delhi airport.
She said that Mishra had started crying, and begged her not to lodge a complaint against him as he is a “family man and did not want his wife and child to be affected by this incident”.
The whole incident has prompted the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, the aviation sector regulator, to issue a show-cause notice to Air India and term the staff conduct as “unprofessional” and “devoid of empathy”.Meanwhile, Air India CEO Campbell Wilson has written to the staff asking them to report improper behaviour on flights at the earliest.