Air India pee-gate: Shankar Mishra claims victim peed herself as she is a dancer, study says otherwise

Air India ‘pee-gate’ accused, Shankar Mishra a sacked banking executive accused of peeing on an older female co-passenger on a flight from New York to New Delhi told the Delhi court that she “urinated on herself” while rejecting the allegations. 

Mishra’s lawyer told the court “The complainant woman’s seat was blocked. It wasn’t possible for him (Mishra) to go there. She urinated on herself.”

She is a Kathak dancer, 80 per cent of kathak dancers have this issue, he further stated. 

According to a study by Science Alert on Screening of Urinary Incontinence in Female Dancers-A Cross-Sectional Study, the health problems of dancers are worthy of attention for several reasons; first, because most dancers begin training at a young age, there is potential for a great impact on their future health, secondly; the interplay of physical and aesthetic demands in dance may lead to various health issues especially relevant to dancers. 

The study aimed to know to find the correlation between the type of dance, intensity of dance and BMI of dancers to that of urinary incontinence.

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World Health Organization (WHO) stated urinary incontinence is a “widespread global disease and one of the last medical taboos to many people,” the study. 

The study took an unrestricted sample of female dancers, ages 18 to 25, who practice different dance styles at recreational, competitive centres, and physiotherapy departments and was screened for UI for a period of six months. 

As per the results, overall, 124 females have screened out of which 62 subjects were dancers and 62 were non-dancers (age-matched control) and 14 female dancers (22.5%) reported urine loss while participating in their various dance forms.

Hip-hop had the highest incidence of incontinence (about 50%), followed by Bharatnatyam (28%) and Kathak (12.5%).

The study found that urinary incontinence affected 22.5% of female dancers and that urinary incontinence was positively correlated with dancers' BMI and training duration.

The lawyer accused the complainant peed on herself who was a Kathak dancer and 80% of Kathak dancers have the problem urinary incontinence. The study proves otherwise. 

A sessions court bench was hearing Delhi Police's appeal of a magistrate court's decision on January 7 depriving Mishra of custody as they made their arguments.

Although it is not always practicable, the Sessions Court Judge acknowledged that moving from one side of the aeroplane to the other is possible.