Rahul Gandhi comes in support for comedian Kunal Kamra, slams flying ban

He said the ban imposed on him (Kamra) is an act of a coward leveraging his influence with the government to silence a critic.

In a tweet, the former Congress president said, "The ban imposed on Kunal Kamra by 4 airlines is the act of a coward leveraging his influence with the government to silence a critic. Those who use their 'news' cameras as 24*7 tools of propaganda, should show some spine when the camera is turned on them."

Rahul also attached a news piece from Huffington Post, along with his tweet, which quoted Arun Kumar, director-general of Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) as stating that the ban on the standup comedian announced by airlines including Indigo, Air India, Spice Jet and Go Air is a violation of the rules.

However, the Directorate of Civil Aviation (DGCA), earlier in the evening, rebuffed the Huffington Post report and clarified that the decision of banning standup comedian Kunal Kamra is not a violation of the Civil Aviation Requirement (CAR Section 3, Series M, Part Vl on “Handling of Unruly Passengers) rules revised in 2017.

In a statement, the DGCA said: "HUFFPOST has misquoted/misrepresented the facts as stated by the Director General of Civil Aviation in its News Item publish today at 5.01 PM."

It said the actions have been taken in "complete consonance" with the Civil Aviation Requirement CAR Section 3, Series M, Part Vl on “Handling of Unruly Passengers" rules revised in 2017.

After getting banned by IndiGo and Air India for heckling journalist Arnab Goswami during a flight journey, stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra on Wednesday received the same treatment by airline SpiceJet.

Reacting to the ban, Kamra issued a statement which reads, ".... I haven't even travelled SpiceJet or Air India in this event and there's no pattern here of me being unruly. This was the first time something like this has happened, so why have they jumped the gun and banned me? I have travelled SpiceJet and Air India in the past. There have been no complaints against me ever, only selfies and love has been shared by the crew."

Kamra, in the video posted on Tuesday on his Twitter handle, was seen attacking Goswami over his brand of  “journalism” and provoked him to respond holding that he is doing this for late Dalit student Rohith Vemula's mother (Rohith had committed suicide). He asked him if he is a "coward" or a "nationalist", ridiculing the media personality for his stand and aggression against certain groups like JNU students, liberals, et al. Goswami, who helms pro-government Republic TV, reportedly called him mentally unstable during the incident and kept quiet.

He even challenged Goswami, who was on his laptop sporting dark glasses, to speak out against him identifying himself as “anti-national” and one of  “tukde-tukde narrative”.

Soon after the video went viral, Indigo issued a statement saying: "In light of the recent incident on board 6E 5317 from Mumbai to Lucknow, we wish to inform that we are suspending Mr. Kunal Kamra from flying with IndiGo for a period of six months, as his conduct onboard was unacceptable behaviour."

Soon after national carrier Air India banned him from flying for a similar period of time.

Kamra posted along the video that he did this (heckling Arnab Goswami midair) for his hero Rohit (read Rohith Vemula, the Dalit Ph.D scholar student who had committed suicide alleging discrimination against him in University of Hyderabad).

While Arnab Goswami is known for his ballistic TV journalism and attacks on "liberals", he during the midair episode kept silent.

Image Credit: IBNS File