AI clueless on illegal landing of Afghans

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, OCT.30. The Air India affair that led to the illegal landing of two Afghan Sikhs at London's Heathrow Airport by its flight AI-111 from Mumbai via New Delhi without air tickets and valid travel documents is becoming murkier. This comes as the Civil Aviation Ministry kicked off its Aviation Safety Week on Monday in a security surcharged environment.

Now it turns out that four passengers travelling by the flight had approached the British immigration authorities for political asylum. Air India, on its part, started an internal inquiry into an obviously serious security lapse, particularly at a time when all efforts were directed at making aviation security foolproof.

Of the four, two passengers had tickets and other travel documents. They were supposed to go from London to Lagos in Nigeria, but did not want to do so and instead asked for political asylum in the U.K., according to the Air India officials.

The British immigration authorities are reportedly questioning all the four passengers and trying to establish their real identities. While the two ticketless travellers were being questioned as to how they managed to slip in, the authenticity of the travel documents of the other two passengers was being checked. All the four are said to be Afghans.

While the Air India authorities are awaiting the outcome of the investigations by the British immigration officials, the internal inquiry ordered by the airlines is aimed at figuring out how the two managed to travel to London, particularly when the security officials physically checked the aircraft at Delhi after making even the transit passengers deplane. What makes the whole thing perplexing is that even the lavatory is supposed to have been checked by a team of six security officials.

Asserting that there was no ``procedural lapse'', the Air India officials said that a total of 56 passengers were supposed to deplane at Delhi. As the count showed that 54 passengers had alighted, the massive exercise to carry out a thorough check was undertaken after all the transit passengers were made to deplane. There was also a mandatory head count before security clearance was given for the flight to proceed but the two extra passengers could not be traced.

Under the law, the British authorities can levy hefty fines on the airlines if they conclude that the fault lies with it. However, the Air India authorities are hoping that it would not be done in this case since it had carried out all mandatory checks.

Hasan Suroor reports from London:

The Home Office here said it was not aware of any Sikhs arriving here illegally in the past two days. However, four Afghan nationals did arrive by an Air India flight from Delhi on Sunday and sought asylum. They had been given temporary admission, while their asylum applications were being looked into. Air India stonewalled all queries saying they had no information. No senior official was available for comment.

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