Five CISF personnel de-rostered after taxi enters restricted area; alarm raised after 30 minutes.
“Mala vaat-te me rastaa chukle. Malaa sagle plane distaahet (I think I’ve lost my way. I can only see aircraft around),” a confused Manisha Pawar, 21, told her colleague on the phone after she ‘accidentally’ drove a taxi into the Mumbai airport’s taxiway NI around 10.50am on Thursday.
Through this, Manisha, employed with the Priyadarshini private cab service, also ‘accidentally’ exposed major security loopholes at the airport on only her 10th day at work.
Every day, 240 vehicles and 35,000 men go in and out of the airport. Thursday was no different. The only difference was that while big vehicles like catering vans were checked at gate number 5 at the Sahar airport, a silver cab with a woman driver, clad in a blue salwar-kurta, entered without being checked by Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) guards stationed there.
After dropping a passenger at Andheri, Manisha reached outside terminal 2A of the airport to pick up another fare. “She got a call from her company, saying the passenger has to be picked up from Santa Cruz, not Sahar,” a police officer from the Sahar police station told DNA.
She asked another cabbie for a short cut to Santa Cruz, but instead of following his directions, wrongly took the route that passes gate number 5 before the Sahar cargo area. “She saw a catering van outside the gate and thought it was the road leading to the Santa Cruz airport,” the officer said.
Manisha drove up to the gate and waited behind a van, which was parked at the entrance. She saw the CISF guards checking the van driver’s airport entry pass before letting the vehicle in. She followed the van, but strangely, was neither stopped nor questioned by the CISF personnel.
Once inside, she overtook the van, which was driving within the permissible limit of 20kmph, and raced on the service road leading to taxiway N1, which is half-a-kilometre from the gate. It was only then that Mumbai International Airport Limited security officials noticed the speeding taxi and alerted CISF guards. She was apprehended 30 minutes after she drove in, and handed over to the CISF police.
The security breach has prompted the airport authorities to crack the whip on erring staff. “We have de-rostered four officials pending inquiry. The guilty will be punished,” Jitendra Negi, CISF deputy inspector-general, said. At the time of going to press, the police had not registered any charges against Manisha.
Susieben Shah, president, Stree Shakti Kendra, an NGO which runs the Priyadarshini cab service, said Manisha realised the gravity of the situation only when she saw aircraft around her. “She is new to the roads. Had she been stopped at the gate, she would not have driven inside,” Shah said.
An airport source said: “This is quite strange as every vehicle that enters the airport is thoroughly checked by CISF officials. They not only check the driver’s permit and airport entry pass but even the driver is made to get down and is frisked by the CISF.”
He added: “The security officials spot the vehicles only under two conditions - when it is driven above the prescribed speed limit of 20 km per hour or when it is where it should not be (airside area).”
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