Police register FIR against immigration officer

Delhi Police have registered an FIR against the immigration officer who had allegedly 'verbally sexually' harassed a passenger at Indira Gandhi International Airport in the national capital.
The FIR was filed at IGIA Police Station under sections 354A, 354D and 506 after police received an email complaint from the victim.
"We have registered an FIR and taken up investigation after we received the women's complaint through email. Everything will be done in this case as per law," said a senior police official.
The immigration officer, identified as Vinod Kumar, allegedly asked the woman some sexually explicit questions while checking her passport and other travel documents after she reached the national capital from Bengaluru on her way to Hong Kong.

The Bengaluru-based woman in her complaint to the police has alleged that she was verbally sexually harassed by Kumar.
"I would like to complain about an immigration officer who verbally sexually harassed me not only during the immigration process at the desk but also by following me along the travelator between domestic and international transfer. This happened on March 19 at 9.30 PM," the woman said in her complaint.

The woman has also alleged that the immigration officer asked many unpleasant and private questions while clearing the decks at the immigration counter.
According to the complaint, she was asked questions like, how many children do you have, do you drink, do you smoke, do you eat chicken, do you sleep with other men when your husband is at work. Not once or twice, but he asked her four times if she had undergone a surgery for birth control. He even asked her whether she would like to have her third child with him.

Taking cognisance of the incident, the Home Ministry has placed the immigration officer under suspension with immediate effect and ordered a departmental inquiry.
The father-in-law of the victim, a former head of a Karnataka commerce and industry body, in his online complaint mailed to the Commissioner, Bureau Of Immigration, Delhi, P K Bhardwaj, said his daughter-in-law lodged an oral complaint on her return from Hong Kong on March 23 at the airport along with her husband and son.
Soon after the incident was brought to the notice of the Foreigners Regional Registration Officer (FRRO) Alok Kumar Verma, he said the officer directed the family to lodge an online complaint to the Commissioner of Bureau of Immigration.

On a quick interrogation, the official denied he had spoken to her by leaving his desk and followed her on the travelator, at the transfer area, he said.