A passenger has been booked for allegedly tampering with an emergency exit mechanism on a Pune-bound IndiGo flight, shortly after the aircraft left Delhi. The incident happened on Monday aboard flight 6E6884, which departed Delhi at around 12.45 am and landed in Pune at approximately 2 am.

The man is Gaurav Satyendra Routela, 33, a resident of Saswad. According to an official, he was seated near the emergency exit when he allegedly interfered with the cover of its door lever. The plane was already in the air when the cover was touched.

An alarm in the cabin and an explanation that raises more questions

Senior inspector Govind Pawar of the Airport Police Station said Routela told investigators he had touched the cover out of curiosity. He told police he did not realise the cover was connected to the emergency exit mechanism. That touch set off an alarm, and the alarm caused concern among the other passengers on board.

It is hard to overstate how strange that sequence is. A man sits beside an emergency exit on a late-night flight, reaches for a cover, and the cabin reacts as if something has gone badly wrong. Nobody is hurt, the plane lands safely in Pune, and yet the fear was real enough to bring the case to the police.

"Tampering with an emergency exit mechanism could put the lives and safety of everyone on board at risk."

That warning came from Pawar, who spoke after the case was registered. His point was blunt: the risk does not fall only on the person who touches the mechanism. It falls on every person in the aircraft.

The complaint, the charges and the notice

The case was registered following a complaint by a member of the flight crew. That detail matters. The alarm was not a passenger’s imagination or a rumour passed along later. A crew member saw the situation, reported it, and set the legal process in motion.

Routela has been booked under Section 125 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the BNS. That section deals with acts done rashly or negligently that endanger human life or the personal safety of others. He has also been booked under provisions of the Aircraft Act.

Police have served the passenger a notice under Section 35(3) of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, the BNSS. Further investigation is underway, the official said. The reporting available so far does not say whether the investigation has reached any conclusion about his intent, and it does not say how the case will proceed from here.

Curiosity is the defence, and the cover is the problem

Curiosity is the only explanation Routela has offered in the details provided so far. It is an easy one to say out loud and a much harder one to accept when a cabin full of people has just heard an alarm. Police have not said whether they accept it. The investigation will decide how much weight that explanation carries.

The detail that stands out is the cover itself. It sat over a door lever, and it was close enough to a seated passenger that a casual touch was enough to trigger an alarm. Covers like this are there to keep hands away from a mechanism that matters in an emergency. A passenger who has not been told what sits behind a cover may not realise how much is at stake, and that is exactly the gap the case exposes.

Why the seat by the exit is not just extra legroom

Passengers often treat the seat near an exit as a bonus, a little more space to stretch out. This episode turns that assumption around. The seat comes with a duty to leave the mechanisms beside it alone, even when the mechanism looks like a simple cover you could lift on a whim.

The timing adds to the unease. The flight was a late-night service that left Delhi just before one in the morning and touched down in Pune around two. Most passengers on a flight like that are tired, half asleep, and looking to get home. The people sitting around the affected seat did not choose to share the cabin with an incident of this kind, and they only found out when the alarm sounded.

What makes the story hard to shake is how ordinary the first move was. Routela did not, according to his account, set out to cause harm. He touched something he did not understand. The consequence was a cabin on edge and a complaint filed by crew, followed by a criminal case under a section that exists precisely for acts of rashness or negligence that put others at risk.

The case is still at the investigation stage. Police have not described any further charges, and the details available so far come from the official account and the complaint that triggered the registration. What is clear is that a single touch, made in the air, was enough to frighten a flight full of passengers and bring the police into the story before the plane had even come to rest in Pune.

For passengers, the lesson is short and direct. Do not touch covers, levers or mechanisms beside your seat, however harmless they appear. Curiosity has a cost, and on an aircraft, that cost can be shared by everyone else on board.