FIR filed against Delhi immigration official for harassment

Delhi Police on Tuesday registered an FIR against an immigration official at the Indira Gandhi International Airport here for verbal sexual harassment of a woman passenger who took a flight to Hong Kong on March 18.

Deputy Commissioner of Police M.I. Haider told IANS that a First Information Report (FIR) has been registered against the immigration official on charges of sexual harassment and investigation in the case in on.

The official has not been arrested yet, he added.

The woman, whose identity was not revealed, claimed that immigration officer Vinod Kumar harassed her by asking "several uncomfortable personal questions" at the immigration counter before she boarded the flight to Hong Kong, where she went to meet her husband.

She said the officer not only harassed her during the immigration process at the desk, but also by following her along at the escalator between the domestic and international transfer.

After the media highlighted the issue, the home ministry, under which the immigration department falls, took action by suspending the immigration official March 27 and also set up a departmental inquiry.