Indigo Airlines saw more acts of protests against the ban on Kunal Kamra with environmental activists Priya Pillai, Medha Kapoor and others holding banners on an Indigo flight.
Pillai and Kapoor held banners that said “We condemn Indigo’s ban on Kunal Kamra #YouDivideWeMultiply” on a Varanasi-Delhi flight.
Kamra was banned from flying Indigo after he questioned Republic TV editor Arnab Goswami on his channel’s biased coverage of the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act.
This act of protest comes close on the heels of several celebrities criticising the airline for the ban on Kamra, which did not even follow DGCA guidelines.
Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap had refused to fly Indigo after the ban on Kamra. He tweeted saying, “No @IndiGo6E .. on @airvistara .. in solidarity with @kunalkamra88” earlier this week.
Vistara, owned by the Tatas, was one of the only airlines that did not ban Kamra. After Indigo’s ban other airlines like Air India, Go Air and Spice Jet also banned Kamra.
Huffpost India has reached out to Indigo for an update on the ban on Kunal Kamra and will update this article when they respond.
Celebrities like Swara Bhaskar, Richa Chadha and Hansal Mehta have also criticised the ban against Kamra.
In fact, the DGCA chief had admitted to Huffpost India’s Rachna Khaira that the ban on Kamra was in violation of rules.
Arun Kumar, director general of Directorate General of Civil Aviation had said that in case of unruly behaviour restricted to verbal confrontation, the airlines must first impose a temporary ban of 30 days on the passenger and conduct an internal enquiry headed by a retired judge into the incident.
“Air India has been wise enough to impose a ban for an indefinite period and is awaiting the outcome of the enquiry report conducted by the airlines. In incidents restricted to verbal confrontation, a ban should not be more than three months,” Kumar had said.
The DGCA later claimed in a statement that they were “misquoted”.