‘Kashmiris Treated as Third-Class Citizens’: Family of SpiceJet Staff After Brutal Assault by Army Man

New Delhi: In Srinagar’s Bemina, Mudasir Ashraf Khan’s home is being swarmed by a sea of people. Those nearby, those afar, those among the known and the unknown have been flocking his home since July 26, a routine day for Khan until the unthinkable happened. 

Khan, who can barely move, says he shivers when he is made to recall the incident that occurred that day at Srinagar’s Sheikh Ul Alam International Airport’s Boarding Gate No. 2 while he was on duty as SpiceJet ground staff. 

“It was very horrible, brutal and terrifying. We never thought it would escalate into bloody and painful injuries. I was crying for help and was screaming for help but whenever the staff members tried to save me from him, he would begin assaulting anyone who came in his way or tried to stop him. I was beaten so much that I lost consciousness, I coughed out blood,” he tells The Wire.

The CCTV footage and user-recorded videos of the incident have been circulating on social media.

Minutes before the scheduled departure of SpiceJet Flight SG-386 to Delhi, the airport was startled with shrieks of SpiceJet staff, after the airline staff asked an Army officer, who was a passenger on the flight, to pay for his excess baggage. 

Lieutenant Colonel Ritesh Kumar Singh, who was carrying 16 kg of cabin baggage — double the 7 kg limit, refused to pay excess baggage charges, forcefully entering the aerobridge without completing the boarding process, violating security protocols at the defence airport. Escorted back to the boarding gate by a CISF official, Singh violently charged at the staff with a metal signboard, assaulting four SpiceJet ground staff members, the airline has publicly stated.

Singh continually assaulted the staff members, threw punches, kicks and even using a metal queue stand as a weapon. As a result of it, Khan, who was among the victims, suffered spinal cord damage in L1 and L2, bruises on his arm. He has been advised complete bed rest for at least two months now, in addition to medications.

Ground staff carrying an injured staff member at Srinagar airport for hospitalisation after the assault, as captured in the CCTV footage. Photo: X/@defencealerts

SpiceJet has written to the Ministry of Civil Aviation, seeking action over the “murderous assault” and the Army has also taken cognisance of the incident and issued a statement saying the Indian Army is committed to upholding the highest standards of discipline and conduct, and takes all allegations seriously and would extend “full cooperation to the authorities in investigating the case”. 

SpiceJet has also lodged an FIR with the local police, and the airline has initiated the process to place the passenger on the no-fly list in accordance with civil aviation regulations. The FIR slaps Lt. Col. Singh with sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023, including 115 (2) (offense of voluntarily causing hurt and its punishment), 126 (2) (intentionally obstructing someone from moving in a direction they have the right to go), 351 (2) (offense of criminal intimidation which specifies the punishment for general cases of such intimidation), and 131 (punishment for assault or criminal force used against someone without grave and sudden provocation). 

The FIR details the incident as: 

“Singh, whose identification details can be verified from airport security footage and CISF records, engaged in an unprovoked and violent assault against multiple civilian employees of SpiceJet Airlines. The victims of the assault include Mr. Govindrajan Swami, Mr. Mudasir Ashraf Khan, Mr. Nadeem Sofi, Mr. Emaad Bhat. The complaint states that, ‘the passenger verbally abused and criminally intimidated the aforementioned staff members in an aggressive and threatening manner. He wrongfully restrained Mr. Mudasir Ashraf Khan, and physically manhandled him in full public view, thereby violating his personal liberty and safety. The passenger then assaulted multiple staff members, causing grievous injuries to the staff. The entire incident occurred within the jurisdiction of Srinagar Airport and was witnessed by several civilians and airport personnel. The incident is believed to have been captured by CCTV surveillance installed at the premises’.”

Meanwhile, Khan’s family feel a little differently. To them, this incident did not happen in isolation.

Khan struggles to even speak and move on his own, while his parents are still not able to process how an incident like this could happen at one of the most guarded places in Kashmir. 

“This airport is an international defence airport and has many security personnel and security cameras. My son and his colleagues manhandled in broad daylight. This is highly condemnable,” Khan’s mother says.

On the other hand, Singh has filed an FIR countering SpiceJet’s claims and against the airport staff he was seen beating on CCTV. 

Sources told The Wire that in his FIR, Singh has accused the airport staff of trying to extort money from him in the name of excess baggage.

Shibli Khan, Mudasir’s brother, feels that the incident is a signifier of what Kashmiris are being identified as. 

He says, “Kashmiris are treated as third-class citizens and many times these assaults and brutal attacks happen but the perpetrator is never held accountable. This incident is a peek at the same. Are we not human?”

Recently and even in the years that followed 2019, Kashmiris studying, working or simply existing in mainland India have been the targets of rising hate-speech and hate-crimes owing to their identity.

Following the Pahalgam attack on April 22, many Kashmiri students in states including Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh were allegedly asked to leave their rented apartments or university hostels; several of them were physically attacked.

In Uttarakhand's capital, Dehradun, around 20 Kashmiri students fled to the airport following warnings from Hindu Raksha Dal.

Speaking to The Wire, an airport staff member who witnessed the incident and wished to remain anonymous says that since then, the Srinagar airport has remained ominously quiet, and everyone who works there is still very sensitive towards any loud sound of quarrel they hear.

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