Mumbai: Responding to Shiv Sena’s call for a shut down in Maharashtra’s Osmanabad, shopkeepers pulled down their shutters in support of MP Ravindra Gaikwad to protest against airlines banning him from flying.

Last week, Gaikwad had beaten an Air India employee while flying from Pune to Delhi because he had to travel in economy class though he had a business class ticket. After the flight landed, he beat the official with his slippers and prompted Air India and six private airlines to ban him from flying on any of their flights until he apologised. However, the 56-year-old parliamentarian, elected from Osmanabad in May 2014, refused and demanded that the airline employee should first apologise.

The shocking incident has been condemned across the country, but the Sena called for a bandh in support of Gaikwad today. Shiv Sena supporters also held a motorcycle rally in Umerga, a constituency he represented in the Assembly for two terms.

Sena district vice president Kamlakar Chavan in Osmanabad said, “We have called for the Osmanabad bandh to protest the humiliation of our leader by the airlines who have denied him flying rights,” the PTI news agency reported. It also quoted Chavan as asking, “Is he a terrorist that he has been barred from flying by all airlines. The testimony of an airhostess on board that flight shows he was not at fault.”

After being barred from flying, on Friday, Gaikwad travelled on the August Kranti Express train which left for Mumbai from Hazrat Nizamuddin station, Delhi, at 4.50pm but the MP did not get down at Mumbai Central Station here as expected. It is not clear whether he got down at Vapi station in Gujarat. He has not revealed his whereabouts, but is reported to have said that he was with his family to celebrate Gudi Padwa, the beginning of the Hindu New Year, on Tuesday.

The Sena, an ally of the BJP government in Maharashtra, has asked Gaikwad not to talk to the media and lie low.

While the Sena has sought an explanation from Gaikwad, Sena president Uddhav Thackeray is yet to meet him.

The MP is also seeking legal options against all airlines which have put him on their no-fly list. “The airlines cannot ban me from flying. I will act legally against the ban soon. I had confirmed return tickets of IndiGo and Air India but they were cancelled.”