Shankar Mishra, a vice president at Wells Fargo was arrested by New Delhi police on Saturday for urinating on a 72-year-old woman while flying from New York to Mumbai on an Air India Flight. Mr. Mishra who is a resident of Mumbai was reportedly arrested from Bengaluru. A Court in New Delhi has sent him to juridical custody for 14 days.
American multinational banking company, Wells Fargo had a few hours ago fired Shankar Mishra from the post of Vice President. Wells Fargo released a statement to the news agencies stating that the company holds its employees to the highest standards of professional and personal behavior. In the press release, the company also announced that it has terminated Shankar Mishra, who is vice president of operations in India.
According to the complaint filed by the elderly women, the incident occurred soon after the crew served lunches to passengers and dimmed the lights on the flight.
Mr. Mishra who was stumbling from a few seats back unzipped his pants and started urinating on the 72-year-old woman. He only stopped urination after her co-passengers asked him to stop. News reports also state that Shankar Mishra was drunk when the alleged incident happened.
Indian multinational airline, Air India announced that it has de-rostered pilots and four cabin crew members who were in charge of the flight while the alleged incident happened. The airline also assured that it will conduct a detailed investigation into the incident and review policy regarding alcohol servings figuring flights.
In the complaint, the woman said that cabin crew members and pilots did not heed her requests for a change in seats. The crew allegedly forced her to sit with Shankar Mishra for the rest of the flight. The Captain of the flight also forbid her from sitting in first class despite having empty seats.
During an interview with an Indian TV news channel. Shyam Mishra, father of Shankar Mishra said that it was a totally false case and that his son will never do such a thing. According to Shyam, his son has not slept for 72 hours prior to the incident. He also claimed that there were no eyewitnesses for the incident and therefore is difficult to probe.
Meanwhile, the lawyers of Shankar Mishra claimed that the woman ‘condoned’ his actions and took compensation for the incident. There are also news reports stating that she returned the compensation money before filing the complaint with authorities.