Air India pee-gate: Kathak dancers dismiss Shankar Mishra's "incontinence" claim, call it "weirdest reasoning"
Jan 13, 2023
New Delhi [India], January 13 : Outrightly dismissing Shankar Mishra's counsel's "incontinence" claims against Kathak dancers, Padma Awardee Shovana Narayan on Friday said that the Air India pee-gate accused is "trying to create a diversion" from his act that he "outraged a woman's modesty".
Narayan's remarks came after Shankar Mishra's counsel argued in the Delhi court today that the complainant woman had urinated on herself and claimed that she was a Kathak dancer with a problem of "incontinence".
"The complainant woman's seat was blocked. It wasn't possible for him (Mishra) to go there. The woman has a problem of incontinence. She urinated on herself. She is a Kathak dancer, 80 per cent of kathak dancers have this issue," the counsel said.
Objecting to the claims, Padma Awardee Kathak dancer Narayan said that this is the "weirdest reasoning" to have been presented.
"I do not agree with it at all, I think it is the weirdest reasoning that has ever been put forth. Any peeing or not peeing is not related to any vocation at all," she told ANI.
"He is trying to create a diversion from the fact that he has outraged a woman's modesty. I think this is what we all need to understand that this is not done. you cannot pee on a person," Narayan added.
Another Kathak dancer Soni Chaurasia, hailing from Varanasi, called the advocate's remarks an "insult" of all Kathak dancers.
"This is an absurd statement and with this, he has insulted all Kathak dancers. The statement is a myth as dancers train their minds & body in a way that can remain very balanced for a very long time," she said.
Shankar Mishra, accused of urinating on a woman on board an Air India Flight from New York to New Delhi flight on Friday told a Delhi Court that he did not commit the offence and submitted that the complainant herself could have peed on her own seat.
The accused through senior lawyer Ramesh Gupta submitted, "The complainant woman's seat was blocked. It wasn't possible for him (Mishra) to go there. The woman has a problem of incontinence. She urinated on herself. She is a Kathak dancer, 80 per cent of kathak dancers have this issue."
Raising questions over the Delhi Police investigation, senior advocate Ramesh Gupta submitted that there must be someone else.
"She herself urinated. The seating system was such that no one could go to her seat. The passenger sitting behind the complainant did not make any such complaint," he added.
On this, Additional Sessions Judge Harjyot Singh Bhalla observed that "It is not impossible to go from one side of the flight to the other. Sorry, but I have travelled as well. Anybody from any row can come around and go to any seat."
Earlier on January 7, Delhi's Patiala House Court Mishra to 14 days of judicial custody.
