Paralympian forced to remove prosthetic leg again at Bengaluru airport, says felt humiliated

Aditya Mehta, a para-cyclist and a two-time silver medallist at the Asian Paralympics, on Thursday said he felt humiliated when he was stripped off and forced to remove his prosthetic limbs again during a security check by the CISF personnel at the Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) in Bengaluru on Tuesday.

Similarly, this comes two months after the Hyderabad-based cyclist was strip-searched at the Bengaluru Airport.

Mehta further said that despite his appeal to the security personnel for a body scanner instead of forcing him to strip off, the personnel did not pay his heed, saying that India cannot afford a body scanner.

"If this is the way they speak and this is the way they treat a person with disability, especially a person who lost his limbs recently and if one has to go through all this procedure then he will lose hope towards life and its will be very tough to get back his confidence back because this is the first time I am wearing my amputation limb, it will forever mentally scar me forever," Mehta told ANI.

The cyclist said he was forced to put his amputated limbs back within 15 minutes after the security check where it usually takes 50 minutes to do so.

"After that I was forced to wear my amputation limbs faster, it usually takes me 50 minutes to do that but they forced me to wear within 15 minutes because of this my injury got aggravated and I am unable to walk for three days," Mehta said.

Mehta also pointed out that despite his complaints to the DG CISF, the Civil Aviation Ministry and the Prime Minister's Office, he did not receive any assurances from them.

He, however, said that he got a reply from the PMO, but no action has been initiated so far.

"I have written to civil aviation office, PMO, DG BSF, CISF but no one replied except the PMO stating that they received the complained and will be forwarded to concerned ministry. I am still waiting for it. I have also filed RTI on the same to the Civil Aviation Ministry," Mehta said.

The two-time silver medallist also pointed out that after the incident the "CISF personnel at the airport started to look him in a weird way.