Indian-origin man arrested for fighting with co-passenger on US flight
New York, Jul 4 (PTI): A 21-year-old Indian-origin man has been arrested and charged after allegedly attacking a fellow passenger on a flight to Miami from Philadelphia, authorities said.
Ishaan Sharma has been charged with battery and is facing a USD 500 bond, according to jail records.
A report in WSVN.com said that Sharma allegedly started a fight with Keanu Evans during the flight. Evans said the fight started for no reason.
The video of the fight also went viral on social media. Upon landing on Monday night, Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office deputies immediately handcuffed Sharma and took him into custody. Officials said he had a cut on his face and needed stitches.
The report added that cell phone footage showed Evans and Sharma in the middle of the fight as other passengers urged them to stop. “Let him go,” said an unidentified passenger. “Stop, let him go.”
A flight attendant reportedly also tried to break up the fight, but was unsuccessful. "Sir, you have to sit down,” a flight attendant, seen on video, tells the men.
Evans told 7News that he was attacked while simply returning to his seat and he did nothing to provoke Sharma.
“What I hate is that the video doesn’t capture what started the whole thing, you know?” said Evans. “It only captures me defending myself.”
Evans said, “He was doing some, like, dark laugh like, ha ha ha ha ha. And he was saying things like, you, you puny mortal man, if you challenge me, it will result in your death.”
Evans said he then went to use the restroom and told the flight attendants what was going on. The flight attendants told him to push the button for assistance if the argument continues. Evans said he pushed the button, the media report said.
“He kept threatening me with death,” said Evans in the report.
“That’s what made me get up and press the button above me and I just turned around and I looked at him and I responded to him. A lot was going on, and immediately he just got up and he put his forehead on my forehead like he was challenging me.”
Evans said the situation quickly escalated and Sharma was “looking at me very angrily and we’re looking eye to eye, forehead to forehead, and then he just grabs me by the throat and just starts choking me. At that moment it was, you know, fight or flight responses kick in. I’m in a tight, confined space on an aircraft, and all I can do is just defend myself”.
“If you see on my face, I’ve got some scratches from him,” said Evans.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
