Stand-up comedian-satirist Kunal Kamra, who has been banned by four airlines for accosting a TV channel editor on an IndiGo flight, on Wednesday said the imposition of the fly ban was "not shocking" for him.
"It's not shocking at all to me that for exercising my right to speech, which falls under Article 19 of our Constitution, airlines have given me a temporary ban from flying," said Kamra in a statement.
Speaking of the incident that occurred on Tuesday onboard the IndiGo flight 6E 5317 from Mumbai to Lucknow, Kamra said that neither was he disruptive and nor did he refuse to follow the instructions of the cabin crew or the captain.
"The fact of the matter is that at no point was I disruptive and at no point did I not follow orders of the cabin crew or the captain. At no point did I endanger the safety of any passenger on board, the only damage I caused was to the inflated ego to the 'journalist' Arnab Goswami'," he said.
Kamra claimed that no formal complaint has been made by the crew or even Republic TV editor Arnab Goswami whom Kamra had accosted, or anyone else on that flight.
"To my limited knowledge, no formal complaint has been made by the crew or Arnab or anyone else taking the flight. Whenever there was an intervention by any member of the crew I complied," he said.
Taking a dig at Goswami, he said: "If expressing myself to an important public figure who himself points a camera day in and day out catching people off guard, is a crime then both of us are criminals."
On Tuesday, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri had "advised" the airlines to ban Kamra from flying. Taking a cue, Air India, SpiceJet and GoAir declared its ban on the Comedian until further orders while IndiGo has barred him from flying for six months.
"Offensive behaviour designed to provoke and create disturbance inside an aircraft is absolutely unacceptable and endangers safety of air travellers. We are left with no option but to advise other airlines to impose similar restrictions on the person concerned," Puri posted on Twitter.
Notably, all the airlines tagged Puri in their tweets announcing their compliance.
Kamra and Goswami were travelling in an IndiGo flight 6E 5317 from Mumbai to Lucknow on Tuesday when the incident happened. In the video posted by Kamra on his Twitter handle, Goswami, who can be seen glued to his laptop, did not respond to the former's rant.
( With inputs from ANI )