Ahmedabad flyers are miffed with the airport police for their lenient approach towards security on the premises in the wake of growing incidents of petty theft.
Many passengers have alleged that the Airport police, in a bid to minimise the number of complaints, take just applications of theft instead of filing an FIR.
A senior citizen, flying to San Francisco via Delhi discovered that gold jewellery and gold coins worth lakhs were missing from his luggage. The Airport police took an application and didn’t file an FIR.
Recently a woman, who was visiting Canada to celebrate the birth of her grandson, found certain jewellery missing from the checked-in-luggage when she landed in Mumbai to catch a connecting flight. The woman, who resides in Ahmedabad’s Maninagar, alerted her husband Ashok Patel about the incident.
When Patel visited the Airport police station to file a complaint, the police merely accepted an application instead of an FIR that obligates them to investigate.
“There was gold and silver jewellery worth Rs 10 lakh in the check-in-luggage that was stolen either at the Ahmedabad or Mumbai Airport. I asked them to file an FIR but they only took an application.” Patel said he was then called by the PI to check the CCTV footage of the conveyor belt at the terminal. “However, only a few photos instead of the CCTV footage were provided which gave no information about the culprit. The police then asked me to file a response that nothing untoward was found, but I refused and asked them to file an FIR,”said Patel.
A police official said, “We had investigated the application as per the orders of the police inspector. We have asked for the CCTV footage but nothing came out. The authority to file an FIR is with the PI and we are helpless.” When asked why a “zero complaint” was not transferred to the Mumbai Airport police, Pandav said it was the prerogative of the PI to do so.
According to Airport police sources, “Eight to 10 complaints of thefts are being filed at the Airport police station every month. The police accept just applications and no FIRs are filed.”
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