Hossain Ahmed Majumder, the man who went missing after he got a panic attack aboard on an Indigo flight — and a video of another passenger slapping him went viral — has been located a day later, reports said.
Majumder was found at a railway station in Assam’s Barpeta on Saturday. He had taken a train from Kolkata to his hometown in Assam, instead of his scheduled second flight that was to land at Silchar, The Indian Express reported.
The police station officer in-charge at his home town Katigorah was quoted as saying, “The individual arrived at Barpeta in Assam after the flight landed in Kolkata. He took the train to Barpeta and is now on his way to Silchar.”
Katigorah is near Silchar, about 400 km from Barpeta.
Traveling to meet his ailing father, his original plan was to take the Mumbai-Kolkata flight, which he did; and then take a connecting flight to Silchar, which he did not.
Instead, he took a train for the second leg of his journey.
His family had gone to the airport in Silchar on Friday afternoon to pick him up, but were confused as he did not emerge. When the video from the flight went viral in the meantime, the family panicked and called his phone.
He did not answer repeated calls, worsening their fears. By Saturday night, he’d been located to Barpeta. It was not immediately clear why he did not take calls.
On the flight earlier, as he had his panic attack, he was being calmed by the crew when a fellow passenger, Hafijul Rahman, slapped him. Rahman said he did it because “he was causing problems”.
Majumder, who lives in Mumbai, had flown this route several times, his family reportedly said.
“He works in a shop in Mumbai, but his father has cancer and his condition has been deteriorating. So the boy was coming to meet his father,” his uncle told IE on Saturday afternoon.
He said he spoke to his wife and parents before taking the flight from Mumbai on Friday morning. His wife, brother and aunt went to the Silchar airport to pick him up, and saw, in the meantime, the viral video.
“They asked the airport authorities where he was, but they didn’t know. Since then, they had been trying to call him. His phone was ringing, but he was not answering. So we have informed the Katigorah police station,” the uncle was further quoted as saying.
His assaulter was handed over to the police upon landing in Kolkata, but was was released later.
