Actor Siddharth says CISF officials mistreated him, family at Madurai airport

Actor Siddharth, who is known best for his work in Tamil and Hindi, recently alleged that he and his family were harrassed by CISF staff at the Madurai airport. According to the actor, the staff behaved rudely with them, to the point of questioning their identity and scrutinising their passports repeatedly.

“The CISF individual who sat behind the glass kept scrutinising our Ids repeatedly, including the children's passports. He then looked at my face and Adhaar card and shouted, 'yeh tum ho?.” When I told him it was me and asked him why he asked me that question when my ID looks exactly like I do, he said he had doubts (sic),” wrote the actor on Instagram.

Earlier, in his Instagram story, the actor had lashed out against the imposition of Hindi on the family, though they were at the Madurai airport. According to the actor, they kept speaking to him in Hindi though he and his family kept replying back in English. “The next individual shouted at us asking, Hindi samajhte hain na?' And before we answered, rudely went on that he would throw out any ipad or phones that he found,” he wrote.

“When we requested them to speak in English, the reply I got was, “Dekho, in India there are rules and regulations.”

The actor added that he was travelling with three elders, two young children and a few adults from Madurai. “I told them we had elders in the group so they can be gentle with them. They then flagged my mother's purse and asked her if she had any coins in it. She said that she did. They then told her to remove all the coins from her purse. When I asked them why that was needed as currency coins are both allowed and clarly seen in the scanner, they replied in India it is the rule that we must remove whatever they ask us to remove. I thold them it was unfair to make someover 70 empty their purse like this . I also asked if something was wrong and why they were talking to us so rudely,” the actor stated.

According to him, another person also shouted at his sister and questioned why she was carrying medical injections. He also wanted to know what the medical problem was, the actor alleged. “One of the children has medical need syringes that were in a clearly marked med bag. My sister requested him to come and speak to her in private. Why was the curious gentleman asking for medical details of a sensitive nature acrsoss an open areas. Is it fair to reveal people's personal details like this?,” he asked.

The actor says he decided to explain his experience because many people, including media houses, had reached out to him to receive clarity about the incident.