"Manly" Russian Woman In Burqa Who Refused To Be Identified Grounds Spicejet Flight In India

If women continue to insist on wearing burqas and niqabs they're going to have to put up with profiling and suffer the consequences, whether they like it or not. With global terrorism on the rise, the days of tolerance are over. Twenty years ago nobody would have been hassled for the way they dressed; if a woman wore a burqa in those days, they'd be looked upon as a slight, somewhat exotic oddity, but nothing more. Although, frankly, I don't recall ever noticing women wearing burqas and niqabs as they do today. I traveled all over the world as a child and as an adult and I don't remember seeing them until recently. And they stand out more today than they would have twenty years ago, because most people are now wondering what suicide bombs might be hidden under those flowing robes. That's what is so ironic about the whole notion of Islamic modesty. Because there are so few women wearing hijabs (head scarves) in a sea of humanity, your eyes immediately are drawn to the woman covered up, save her face. So if she didn't want attention, she's getting far more than if she were not wearing an hijab. She would, in essence, blend in like the rest of us.

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But, if the hijab draws attention, seeing someone in a burqa aboard a plane is going to truly make one wonder, especially if they act suspiciously and refuse to show their face, which is what happened on a Spicejet flight in India on Wednesday.

A Spicejet flight on Wednesday made a 'priority landing' in Kolkata after two Russian passengers, including a woman in a burqa, behaved "suspiciously" on board, an airport official said.

The pilot was given a priority landing after passengers reported the couple to air crew and the woman refused to take off her burqa for identification, Kolkata airport director R. Srinivasan said.

The low-cost SpiceJet flight with 123 passengers on board was heading from Pune in the south via the capital New Delhi and on to Kolkata.

"The two Russian passengers, one wearing a burqa had boarded the flight from New Delhi," Srinivasan said. "Some of the co-passengers found their movement suspicious and drew the attention of the crew members."

The plane was taken to an isolation bay at the airport for a search and was surrounded by CISF personnel, the bomb squad, fire brigade and the police, the sources saida. The two Russians have been detained by the authorities for questioning.

The fact that the person wearing the burqa looked like a man, and refused to lift the veil to be identified, didn't help matters. It was, after all a female, but if the stupid woman had simply complied rather than cleaving to her foolish sense of modesty, they would have arrived safely in Kolkata without all the commotion.

Who knows what they were doing that made fellow passengers think they were acting suspiciously, and maybe it was nothing at all, but we are all becoming more and more suspicious about people dressed like that. So if you choose to wear a niqab or burqa be prepared to be scrutinized, and we have every right to do that for our safety.