Stop painful checks at airports, say para-athletes

Para-athlete G Anandan, who represented India at the recently concluded Rio Paralympics, said he had faced many problems when travelling inside the country. “We have two different legs, one for walking (prosthetic) and other for running (blades). I have been refused by many carriers saying that they won’t let me carry blades in the cabin or in the check-in luggage. Only after a lot of hassle and showing ID cards, they would budge. Unfortunately, it hasn’t happened abroad and it is an issue only in India,” Anandan said. Former Paralympic athlete and now coach J Ranjith Kumar said his experience at airports hasn’t been a pleasant one too. Ranjith, a wheelchair-bound athlete in shotput, discus throw and javelin throw, said, “Majority of the personnel at the airports don’t know the hardships of a differently abled person. I have been subjected to security checks at the last minute because my wheelchair or the artificial shoes wouldn’t have been scanned. I would be asked to go all the way back to the counter where the security officer would check us with a lot of questions.” It is not just the para-athletes but also any person with disability who faces such hardships while boarding an aircraft. On January 2016, a disabled activist Anita Ghai person with disability claimed that she had to crawl to the passenger coach after disembarking from an Air India flight. Smitha Sadasivan, Member of Disability Rights Alliance (DRA), said despite working closely with the DGCA on the guidelines for the air carriage of persons with reduced mobility, no changes have been seen. “I don’t understand why the personnel are insensitive regarding persons with disability. To make a person with disability remove their prosthetics or stand up from the wheel chair is an assault on dignity.”