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Indian airforce hit by sex-for-stripes scandal
The allegation of sexual harrassment has hit the Indian Air Force.
The Indian Air Force (IAF) has launched an inquiry into claims by three female cadets that an instructor demanded sex in return for awarding them the stripes of commissioned officers, an official said on Tuesday.
The allegation of sexual harrassment is the first to hit the IAF since it opened its doors to female personnel the mid-90s.
It currently has 600 women on active duty, including 200 pilots operating helicopters and transport aircraft, in the 5,000-strong force.
"Since the matter has come to our notice we have launched an investigation," IAF spokesman squadron leader Mahesh Upasani told AFP.
The three cadets said a senior facility instructor of the Air Force Academy's faculty of ground duty had threatened in December to fail them if they did not submit to his demands for sex.
"The instructor tried to take undue advantage and on my refusal threatened to fail me," said Anshu Singh, one of the three cadets who were suspended and then thrown out of the academy just 20 days before their passing out ceremony last month.
Singh said she and her two colleagues, who had been preparing to become accounts officers in the IAF, were investigating all possible legal recourses open to them.
The Academy, however, said the three were expelled because of their poor performance and "qualities unbecoming of an officer" and not because of the controversy.
"The cadets made three representations to the Air Headquarters against their suspensions but in none of these did they allege sexual harassement," Academy deputy chief Air Commodore Arup Raha said in a report to his headquarters.
The IAF, the world's fourth largest air force, opened its doors to women in 1995 but still prohibits them from flying warjets such as MiGs, Mirage-2000s and Sukhoi-30s or from being deployed in combat units of the force, which has around 1,200 aircraft.
