The 17-year-old actress has alleged that a middle-aged man sitting behind her on flight tried to molest her. She shared the ordeal she had to go through en route Mumbai in the flight in an Instagram story.
Reportedly, the man was caressing her neck while she was asleep. She tried to record what the man was doing, but failed due to dim lights.
She, however, managed to get a screenshot of the man's activities on the flight to some extent.
The national award-winning actress called out to the cabin crew for help but it was of no use. In the live video, she also expressed her displeasure with crew members of the flight.
Right after deboarding the flight, she took to Instagram to narrate her experience in a live video.
In the video, she can be seen fighting her tears and saying, "This is not done, I am disturbed. Is this how you're going to take care of girls?"
Zaira ended her video by saying, "Who is going to help us Girls? If we don't help ourselves, nobody will come ahead."
Meanwhile, the man has been arrested by Police from his Mumbai residence. The harassed has been identified as Vikas Sachdev, a 39-year old businessman. He was traced through his airline ticket.
Vistara airline, on the other hand, issued two statements, one after the other. In its first one, the company had said it would look into the incident, adding that it had "zero tolerance for such behaviour".
We @airvistara have seen the reports regarding @ZairaWasimmm experience with another customer on board last night. We are carrying out detailed investigation and will support Zaira in every way required. We have zero tolerance for such behaviour.
Official Statement: Update #2 pic.twitter.com/9VQOjzGTOK
— Vistara (@airvistara) December 10, 2017
Official Statement: Update #3 pic.twitter.com/wd1RbK4uk6
— Vistara (@airvistara) December 10, 2017
Meanwhile, Divya Sachdev, the wife of the 39-year-old senior executive with a Mumbai-based entertainment company, accused the 'Secret Superstar' actress of doing a publicity stunt.
“This girl has been influenced by fame and wrongly accused my husband Vikas," spotboye.com had quoted Divya as saying.
She had also said: "Why did Zaira not raise an alarm then and there? Why did Zaira tweet two hours later? Zaira had her mother for company. Despite that, the two ladies chose not to make any noise, why?"
A report in The Times of India suggests that although the accused has claimed that he may have accidentally touched the girl, a police officer has said: "She warned him not to touch her, but he continued nevertheless."
