Punish airline for deboarding woman

Calling it a violation of fundamental rights, the NGO Disabled Rights Group (DGR) on Tuesday demanded stringent action against a private airline for deboarding a woman suffering from cerebral palsy at Kolkata airport. Jeeja Ghosh, a teacher at the Indian Institute of Cerebral Palsy, Kolkata, was asked to deboard a Spicejet flight to Goa on Sunday as the pilot reportedly found her unfit to fly alone. She was on her way to attend a conference in Goa. Javed Abidi, convener, DRG, appealed to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to give stringent punishment to the airline and the pilot. "Give an exemplary punishment. Make an example out of Spicejet. Hit them hard and hit them where it hurts. Levy a fine of at least Rs.1 crore. Suspend the pilot who discriminated against Jeeja and humiliated her," said Abidi. According to the rights group, this is not the first incident and such things keep happening. "I seriously wonder as to how many more physically challenged people suffer each single day, humiliated and yet not reported. My safe bet is that for each reported case, there are at least 9 or 10 more that happened but never got reported," he said. According to Census 2001, over 21 million people in India suffer from some kind of disability.