"He should be arrested immediately."
As a video of Bobby Kataria smoking on board a flight went viral, the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security confirmed to ANI that the video is old and appropriate action was taken against Bobby at that time.
Union civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia also took note of the video and said there will be no tolerance for such hazards.
According to reports, Balvinder Kataria, popularly known as Bobby Kataria, had travelled from Dubai to New Delhi on a SpiceJet flight on January 23, 2022.
The video was taken down from his social media pages.
The authorities said: “Video isn’t available on his FB/Insta page. Action was taken by aviation security earlier.”
A SpiceJet spokesperson said: “This is with reference to a video on social media of a passenger smoking onboard a SpiceJet aircraft.
“The matter had been investigated thoroughly in January 2022 when the video was brought to our notice and a complaint had been filed by the airline with the Udyog Vihar police station in Gurugram.
“The video, the investigation had revealed, was shot on January 20, 2022, while passengers were boarding flight SG 706 scheduled to operate from Dubai to Delhi.
“The said passenger and his co-passengers shot the video on the 21st row when the cabin crew were occupied with completing the on-boarding procedure.
“None of the passengers or crew was aware of the act. The matter came to the airline’s notice on January 24, 2022, through social media posts.”
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— Umesh Kumar (@Umeshnni) August 10, 2022
For the uninitiated, smoking is not allowed on domestic flights under India’s air safety rules.
The video enraged social media users, who questioned the state of security.
One user wrote: “This is dangerous. He can light the plane with fire, he should be arrested immediately.”
Another commented: “Immediate arrest this criminal under strict non-bailable sections. He attempted to kill many co-passengers.
“@flyspicejet what was your useless duty staff doing?”
Bobby Kataria, a Haryana resident, is a known offender. On July 28, he uploaded a video of drinking alcohol in the middle of a road in Dehradun.
Reports said Uttarakhand Police have taken note of the video and said action will be taken against him.
After his video of drinking liquor blocking a busy road with a background song saying ‘Sadkain apne baap ki (The roads belong to my father)’ went viral, the video of him smoking inside a plane surfaced.
Bobby Kataria is a bodybuilder with 630,000 followers on Instagram.
He became famous on TikTok. But after TikTok was banned in India, he started posting his videos on Instagram.