As the world is developing people seem to be losing their ethics and sense of judgment. Discrimination is the biggest insult for a differentially abled person. It hurts him or her more than the disease. We are still awaiting the day when society will become more sensitive towards people who belong to the special category.
Why I’m I talking about all this today? That’s because this injustice recently occurred in Kolkata where a 42-year-old woman suffering from Cerebral Palsy was asked to deplane because the pilot of Spicejet Airlines mistook her to be a mentally challenged person. Jeeja Ghosh who is a teacher at the Indian Institute of Cerebral Palsy [Kolkata] felt insulted when she was asked to get off the flight.
The management later apologized to her for their inappropriate behavior and made sure this wouldn’t be repeated in the future. Apologizing to Jeeja Ghosh the management said “‘We deeply apologies for the inconvenience caused to the passenger and express regret the incident.
The matter will be investigated and action will be taken.” When the issue was brought to the notice of the Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh he said “SpiceJet is inspecting what happened, the DGCA will also look into the matter.”
This is however not the first time when a differentially abled person was deprived of his right to travel by flight. In May last year, Kingfisher Airlines also did the same with a visually challenged person who was intending to travel from Mumbai to Goa.
Now the question is, why can’t a person aboard a flight just because he or she is not blessed with a normal function body? When the constitution does not deprive its special citizens of any rights then what right does a pilot have to question a passenger?
Any passenger irrespective of his or her disability cannot be deplaned. The sooner society accepts these people as an inseparable part the closer we get to prosperity.
