IndiGo Ground Staff Resigns After Being Asked To Touch Feet At Bengaluru Airport

A former IndiGo ground staff employee resigned from his job after alleging he was humiliated and instructed to touch his supervisor's feet as punishment for forgetting to wear a tie at Terminal 1 of the Kempegowda International Airport in Bengaluru.

The former employee, Mohammad Jamshid Y, took to social media to share his experience, alleging that a toxic and dehumanising work culture at the airline forced him to quit what he described as his dream job.

According to Jamshid, the incident occurred on a scheduled workday when he was assigned to conduct a weekly terminal inspection at Terminal 1. During the inspection, an officer identified as Saptarshi Mukherjee stopped him after noticing that Jamshid was not wearing his tie.

Jamshid stated that he immediately accepted his mistake, apologised, and explained that he had unintentionally forgotten to wear the tie. He assured the officer that it would not happen again.

Mukherjee then called Jamshid's supervisor and questioned why he had been allowed into the terminal without a tie. After the supervisor apologised, Jamshid was instructed to apologise to her, which he did.

However, Jamshid alleged that he was then instructed to touch his supervisor's feet. Finding the instruction deeply humiliating and degrading in a professional workplace, he respectfully refused. Following his refusal, he was told to leave the terminal.

Upon returning from a planned leave, Jamshid found that the incident had become a topic of discussion among his colleagues, which added to his humiliation.

He subsequently approached IndiGo's ethics and compliance team to report the harassment. However, Jamshid expressed dissatisfaction with the outcome of the airline's internal investigation.

The investigation concluded that Jamshid's presence in Terminal 1 on the date of the incident could not be established through the available CCTV footage. Jamshid expressed surprise at this conclusion, noting that the Terminal 1 check-in area is covered by extensive CCTV surveillance.

At the time of writing, IndiGo had not publicly responded to the allegations.