London to San Francisco: Indian guy charged with groping woman on flight!

-DR. ABDUL RUFF COLACHAL

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Journeys open up many interesting events and incidents.  Especially, air journey has a lot stories to tell. Many people have even extraordinary experiences to narrate.

Air journeys are most dangerous ones and highly risky too.

A journey by British Airways Flight from London to San Francisco in USA has ended in trouble for a lady and a man.

The story goes like this.

An Indian or perhaps Indian origin man, Vinay Pochampally has been charged on 27th April with simple assault for allegedly groping a sleeping fellow female passenger for about five minutes continuously on a flight from London to San Francisco. According to a US District Court criminal complaint cited by the Smoking Gun, Vinay Pochampally molested the victim by placing his hand down the woman's shirt two hours into British Airways Flight 285 on 20th April, It is unclear whether Pochampally is not a US citizen, nor do court records identify his lawyer, the investigative news site said.

The female passenger was seated in row 37, behind which was a "bulkhead of the galley and restroom area". During the flight, Pochampally, who was assigned a seat in row 36 of the Boeing 747, "positioned himself in the gap behind row 37 and in front of the bulkhead", reported FBI Agent Bianca Betz in a sworn affidavit cited by the news site. "While in that gap, Pochampally inserted his hand, palm-side down, into the shirt of the sleeping female passenger,"

noted Betz. Pochampally's hand was "underneath the passenger's shirt and undergarments for approximately five minutes, making skin-to-skin contact in the breast and upper chest area..

When the victim awoke, Pochampally -- who was reportedly intoxicated

-- quickly removed his hand from her shirt and ran away down the plane's aisle. According to the criminal complaint, "multiple passengers witnessed the incident" and told crew members what occurred.

British Airways workers confronted Pochampally upon learning of the molestation incident and directed him to move to a different seat for the remainder of the 10-hour trip.

Pochampally was charged with simple assault in a misdemeanour complaint filed in San Francisco federal court.

The air incident is awkward but not very unusual and generally women also  enjoy such brief extracurricular activities so far the secrecy and decency are maintained by men.  The plane co- passenger in this case , a woman, perhaps was in deep sleep or just keeping her eyes closed , was allowing him to do the “little thing”.  But when a panicky Vinay Pochampally began running in panic ,  thereby letting every passenger on board also see and knew his “action” that is not at all fair to her. Perhaps the lady passenger would have ignored the “incident” but others seem to have made it a big issue, forcing her to sign the court complaint. Every other passenger seems to have become gentlemen to take on the affected guy. .

There are instances when the airhostesses are the target of male,

mostly wealthy,   passengers.

Generally speaking air passengers need a crash course on air behavior.

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