Indian-American photographer Pervez Taufiq
Indian-American photographer Pervez Taufiq, and his Indian-American family faced insults after their United Airlines flight landed in Los Angeles. A fellow passenger onboard a shuttle bus transfer at Los Angeles International Airport was caught on camera hurling abuses and racist remarks at the photographer’s children initially.
The American woman, identified as Karen, went on to make racist comments, “Your family is from India, you have no respect for the rules, you think you can push everyone… That’s what you think you are. You guys are f*****g crazy,” she said, after ordering the kids of the celebrated wedding photographer to “shut up”.
According to Pervez Taufiq, this incident happened last week when he was travelling with his wife and three sons and heading to take the flight.
United Airlines’ placed the unruly passenger on ‘no-fly list’ after the incident. Indian-American photographer Pervez Taufiq alleged that the foul-mouthed woman “harassed” his son who was seated next to her on the plane. Her assault and racist rants continued as her body language grew aggressive, all of which was filmed by Indian-American photographer Pervez Taufiq.
Expressing his anger and disbelief, Taufiq shared the video on his Instagram handle and wrote, “I’m thankful United @united got her off the bus ultimately and a few fellow passengers stood up for us. Blown away these types of people still exist. As photographers we have seen a lot of, but this is one we could have done without.” Disturbing video footage of the scene has gone viral on social media, amassing 26.6 lakh views and over 15 thousand likes.
However, when security was called in to bring the matter under control, the woman claimed that she was the victim and defended her behaviour.
A social media user commented, “Looks like her lip filler made its way to her brain.” Another user wrote, “And she thought she was about to get help from a black man.” A third user applauded the photographer’s patience and stated, “This guy exhibited incredible restraint, I would not have been able to.” A fourth user replied, “What we just watched was MAGA behavior! Trump has made it ok to act like this!”