Two former Pakistani politicians were thrown off the plane by angry passengers for delaying the departure of a Pakistani International Airlines (PIA) flight on Monday night.
A video that captured the brash episode went viral overnight, sparking debates on social media about the “VIP culture” in the country.
The flight scheduled to take off from Karachi to the capital Islamabad, took off almost two hours later, where a government official confirmed that it may have been partly due to the late VIPs.
Ramesh Kumar Vankwani, a minority Hindu member of the ruling PML-N party and Rehman Malik, Pakistan’s former Interior Minister had to face angry passengers who had to wait for their arrival – a common scene in the country.
VIPs in Pakistan are used to privileges such as owning plots of land and police escorts, as well as having planes wait for them as and when they are ready to leave.
In the video shot on a mobile phone, Vankwani was seen to arrive with irate passengers waiting at the door of the plane, throwing strings off angry remarks.
A man can be heard saying “150 passengers have been put out because of you!”
Another man said “Malik sahib, you should go back. You should apologise to these passengers. You should be ashamed of yourself!” as the politician turned back to leave.
“Malik Sahib, you’re not a minister anymore! We don’t care! We don’t care anymore!”
One man can be heard saying, what seemed like the peak of the frustration ““We’ve taken it for 68 years. Are we going to take it another 68?” which refers to the age of the country.
Both politicians did not board the plane.
The social media world was riled up with contrasting views on the incident – with some agreeing that the VIPs should not be given any more privileges (the hashtag #notoVIPculture was used), and some saying that despite it is unacceptable to be late, the language used to was too vulgar and rude.
According to Shujat Azeem, and aide to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, two airport officials were suspended over the incident.
In the statement he said, the flight was delayed 90 minutes due to a technical hitch, and got delayed a further 25 minutes because of Malik.
Astro Awani
Wed Sep 17 2014
The "VIP culture" in Pakistan is said to frustrate the people in the country.
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