BENGALURU: A flight attendant has been accused of stealing a gold necklace from a five-year-old who was flying with her mother and sister.
Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) police have taken up a case against the IndiGo cabin crew member, based on a complaint filed by the girl's mother, Priyanka Mukherjee.
Priyanka, wife of an Isro scientist, said she boarded an IndiGo plane on April 1 from Thiruvananthapuram to Bengaluru where she had a connecting flight to Kolkata.
A while after the flight took off, her two daughters — aged five and two — quarrelled and were crying. The flight attendant asked Priyanka to hand over the older daughter to her so she could show her around the flight to pacify her; she suggested the mother attend to the younger one.
The flight attendant handed the child back to Priyanka when the aircraft was landing. "I noticed that the gold necklace weighing around 20 grams that my daughter wore was missing. I questioned the flight attendant about it, and she denied having taken it. I then escalated the matter to the Central Industrial Security Force, IndiGo, and the airport authorities," Priyanka told TOI.
"From the time we landed in Bengaluru till the afternoon, I didn't get a proper response from anyone. The airport authorities informed me that since the incident happened on the flight, I had to deal with the airline and police."
"I tried filing a complaint. When police spoke to the airline, they didn't get the flight attendant to speak to them. Their office informed police the flight attendant was denying the allegation. They also claimed that there is no CCTV footage to confirm the incident," Priyanka said. "They also refused to share photos of the crew. My daughter and I could identify the suspect."
"I had made a short video of my daughter while eating cake on the flight, and she had the necklace on at that time. My husband came down to Bengaluru from Thiruvananthapuram as I wasn't getting proper response from the authorities concerned. We lodged a complaint and stayed at the airport overnight till we took another flight to Kolkata," Priyanka said.
According to Priyanka, the necklace is worth around Rs 2.5 lakh, but the value has been mistakenly mentioned as Rs 80,000 in the FIR. The family also lost the money paid for the connecting flight that they missed. A senior cop said the airline is denying the allegations. "We are investigating and necessary action will be taken," he added.
Assisting with probe: IndiGo
"We are aware of a recent incident involving a staff member on flight 6E 661 from Thiruvananthapuram to Bengaluru, regarding a concern raised by our customer. We take such matters extremely seriously and are providing full support and cooperation to the relevant authorities in carrying out the investigations," IndiGo said.