The incident took place early this morning in the departure area when the NRI family was to board a flight to Boston. The accused, Ahmed Reza and his accomplice Binoy Sanyasi, were arrested by the police and later produced in a city court, which released them on bail. Both have been suspended by Air India.

“It is a very unfortunate incident. This has never happened before at this airport,” said R Srinivasan, director, NSC Bose International Airport.

“The two worked as loaders. We have suspended them immediately and will ensure they do not work with us in future,” said a spokesperson of Air India.

According to the police, the Bengali NRI family from Boston was in Kolkata on a holiday. They were to board a Lufthansa flight to Boston via Frankfurt today around 1.30 am. The girl, her mother and six-month-old sister arrived with relatives at the airport around 1.30 am today. It was in the departure area near the X-ray machine where the family was standing when the incident happened. Suddenly, the nine-year-old girl was approached by Ahmed Reza, a loader for Air India, who wanted to frisk her for security check. Binoy Sanyasi, another loader, was with Reza. The victim’s mother was standing at a distance with her six-month-old baby. Before her mother could react, Reza, who was allegedly drunk, started to frisk the girl. Taken aback, the nine-year-old girl shouted in pain and started crying, drawing the attention of her mother.

Realising the situation, her mother raised an alarm and started running out of the departure area with her girls. Other passengers and CISF jawans rushed to the spot. Reza and Sanyasi tried to flee but were caught by other passengers who roughed them up. Relatives of the family also arrived at the spot.

There was tension when more passengers gathered and mobbed senior employees of the company for hiring “criminals” as ground staff.

The victim’s mother first lodged a written complaint with airport manager Tanima Dutta and then the relatives of the family lodged a complaint with the airport police station, where the accused were later handed over.

“How can this happen in a high security airport? We were inside the airport and they were in the departure area. We heard her screaming and running towards us. The CISF jawans and fellow passengers caught the staff and his accomplice. The person was dead drunk. We have lodged a complaint with the police,” said Sulekha Roy, a relative of the victim.