On the 28th of January, Kunal Kamra, a comedian, had an encounter with journalist Arnab Goswami in an IndiGo flight travelling from Mumbai to Lucknow. During the journey, Kunal Kamra recorded a video in which he asked questions related to the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) incident and journalism to Arnab Goswami.
Kunal Kamra shared his views about Mr. Goswami’s journalism and asked him to have a conversation. However, Arnab Goswami did not respond to his questions and continued using his laptop instead. In a statement, Mr. Kamra said, “Today, I met Arnab Goswami on a flight to Lucknow and politely asked him to have a conversation…I gave him a monologue about what I felt about his ‘journalism.’ He refused to answer any questions, and called me mentally unstable.”
After this ‘mentally unstable’ comment, Kunal Kamra started recording a video, mimicking Arnab Goswami and provoking him as the latter did not answer his questions related to journalism.
*My Statement* pic.twitter.com/cxFcSCq0Jf
— Kunal Kamra (@kunalkamra88) January 28, 2020
Soon, the video went viral and gained a lot of attention, with many people praising Kunal Kamra for the act. However, the Civil Aviation Ministry of India and IndiGo considered Kunal Kamra’s behaviour offensive. IndiGo banned him from travelling with them for a duration of 6 months.
IndiGo took to its official Twitter handle and posted about the same. The tweet read, “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.”
After IndiGo’s decision to ban Mr. Kamra, Hardeep Singh Puri, the Civil Aviation Minister of India, took to Twitter and urged other airlines to take action against the offensive behaviour of “the person concerned” (Kunal Kamra) towards another passenger (Arnab Goswami.)
Mr. Puri said, “Offensive behaviour designed to provoke & create disturbance inside an aircraft is absolutely unacceptable & endangers safety of air travellers. We are left with no option but to advise other airlines to impose similar restrictions on the person concerned.”
After IndiGo announced to ban Kunal Kamra for 6 months, he immediately took to Twitter and posted a sarcastic message. Kamra wrote, “Thank you Indigo a six month suspension is honestly very kind of you…”
The matter created an outrage amongst netizens. While many of them supported Kunal Kamra for asking the questions believing they needed to be asked, the remaining bunch of people agreed with IndiGo and the Aviation Minister, stating the act was an offensive one.
Below is the link of the video which shows Kunal Kamra asking questions to Arnab Goswami, a renowned journalist and the Editor in Chief of Republic TV.
Stay tuned for further updates.
