The captain of Jet Airways flight from Milan to New Delhi underwent a harrowing experience as he was forced to remove his turban by the security staff at Milan international airport last night. Captain Ravijot Singh Dhupia, who has been flying on the Delhi-Milan-Delhi sector for a while, was asked to come back for a second security check up even after the entire cabin crew had checked in for the flight.

He was taken to a separate room and told to remove his turban, put it in a tray and wait till his headgear passed through the X-ray machine. After the check, he was asked to wear his “hat” again and continue with his duty of flying the aircraft back home.

“I felt humiliated,” he told Manohar Singh Gill, Congress MP from Punjab, saying that the security staff did not even know the difference between a “turban” and a “hat”. Though the Ministry of External Affairs has been claiming from time to time that the issue has been taken up not only with the European Union but also its member states but cases of harassment of turbaned Sikhs continue to be reported.

Talking to The Tribune over the phone, Manohar Singh Gill said that it was not only in Italy but also in Warsaw (Poland) that security personnel at international airports were picking turbaned Sikh passengers at random and asking them to remove their turbans as part of the security drill.