Photographer Pervez Taufiq and his family were the target of horrific verbal abuse from a fellow passenger on an airport shuttle bus after a flight from Cancun to Los Angeles.
The woman targeted not only Taufiq and his wife, but also his two young sons, and the incident was filmed and shared to Taufiq’s Instagram account.
Taufiq runs P.Taufiq Photography, a wedding photography and cinematography business with a team of 20 staff in the US, and 14 in India.
The video shared on November 24 shows the woman saying: “Your family is from India. You have no respect, you have no rules, you think you can push everyone, push, push, push. That’s what you think you are. You guys are fu**ing crazy.”
She can also be seen sticking two middle fingers up at the family, and there was a particularly nasty moment where Taufiq says, “You just told me to have some more curry right?” to which the woman replies, “Yeah, I’m going to record your tandoori a**,” before adding, “want some more?”
Taufiq remains calm despite the abuse being thrown at him, even offering to show the woman his passport at one point when she refuses to believe that he and his family are American.
The incident allegedly began prior to the bus ride on the flight itself, when Taufiq’s 11 year old son was sitting in the same row as the woman.
He told The Independent that “she was making comments to him on the flight. She was saying, ‘Are you Indian?’ He’s 11, so he was like, ‘Yeah, I’m Indian’.”
“And she’s like, ‘Are you from New Delhi?’ And he said, ‘No, my family’s from Bombay,’ and so that’s where this whole thing kicked off,” Taufiq added. “Then she said, ‘Oh, I gotta talk to your parents.’”
The woman’s husband allegedly acted in a threatening manner towards Taufiq before she was eventually removed from the bus. According to Taufiq the police are looking to arrest her, and United Airlines will be placing her on a no-fly list.
However, he added, “What was disturbing to me and even to the kids was nobody stood up for us, nobody, just that one guy, and even he was kind of late to the punch,” Taufiq told The Independent.”
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