An Indian man has been jailed for molesting a Singapore Airlines stewardess on a flight from Thailand while his friends watched on and laughed.
Akash Tiwari, 34, was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment in a Singaporean court on Monday after pleading guilty to one count of molestation and one count of causing distress by threatening behaviour.
He was also ordered to pay the victim S$1,270.95 in compensation – $1,000 for emotional trauma and $270.95 for medical expenses.
The court heard the incident occurred on February 9 this year during a Singapore Airlines flight from Bangkok to Singapore, and Tiwari was travelling with four of his friends, who were described as “rowdy”.
While the female flight attendant was serving food and drinks, Tiwari touched her thigh and then later touched her buttock/hip area with his elbow, but Tiwari and his friends reacted to the stewardess’s shock by laughing, Channel News Asia reported.
The cabin crew member told Tiwari not to touch her, but he smirked one of his friends remarked that he would like to have a beer and watch the “show”, the court heard.
The victim then went to the aircraft’s kitchen and storage area, but Tiwari followed her there and cornered her despite her repeatedly asking him to stay away, causing her to burst into tears and start shaking.
The incident comes just weeks an Indian national was charged after allegedly raping a female passenger on Scoot Airlines flight from Singapore to Perth.
Last year a 20-year-old Indian international student was jailed for three months for molesting a stewardess on board a Singapore Airlines flight from Perth to Singapore, and another Indian passenger, 73, was sentenced to nine months’ jail for molesting four Singapore Airlines cabin crew members on a flight from San Francisco.
Header image: A Singapore Airlines plane (By Kentaro IEMOTO – Flickr: Singapore Airlines A380-800(9V-SKA), CC BY-SA 2.0, Link).
