Important installations like airports in India are not just targets for terrorists. City’s airport suffers from an internal threat — loaders.
Hold passengers hostage at the airport car park
Important installations like airports in India are not just targets for terrorists. City’s airport suffers from an internal threat — loaders.
It is more than often that passengers find themselves held hostage at the airport car park to veiled threats from unscrupulous loaders. These men wear green uniforms with yellow epaulettes with markings showing their affiliation to ‘Vimantaal Hamaal Ekta Sangatana’ (VHES).
They introduce themselves as ‘authorised personnel to facilitate baggage transfer from the airport entrance to the parking zone’. A very high sounding euphemism for good old porters indeed! They fleece passengers of money and goods with mild blackmail — very polite and veiled threats are made to extort exorbitant charges.
“The porters demand unconscionable tips from foreign passengers. If refused, they slyly cite instances of passengers’ baggage being stolen after they refused to give in to some porters unreasonable demands,” said a spokesperson for the Airport Authority.
Vijay Shishu Pal, a passenger who came from Sharjah narrated how he was fleeced of $400. “The moment I came out of the airport, three loaders accosted me saying they were authorised to assist passengers with baggage. They demanded $400 from me.” When asked whether he approached the police for help, he said that he had not registered a police complaint.
“Such is the clout of these men in green and yellow uniforms,” said VHE General Secretary, “that senior commandant Sanjay Prakash of Central Internal Security Force (CISF) received threatening calls, after CISF tried to curb the loader’s presence at the airport.”
Prakash confirmed, “I remember receiving a telephone call in which the caller threatened to have me transferred, if I did not lay off these loaders.”
A hotel booking agent who operates around the airport for bookings at a nearby five star hotel told how porters mainly target Gujarati-speaking passengers or foreigners entering India. “It is not just money. They sometimes even demand valuable items from the baggage,” he said.
“They also approach outgoing passengers and inform them of various airport charges. Then, they collect $50 as baggage service or trolley charges and sometimes even as airport tax with the more gullible. After they get the money, they promise to meet the passenger inside. They then flee, never to be found again,” he added.
Prakash describes the sheer blackmail, “Passengers in transit from domestic to international flights are easy prey. They need trolleys for their luggage and the luggage area is bereft of trolleys. The loaders suddenly arrive with trolleys and charge exorbitant sums for its use. Harried passengers, desperate to board their flights and stranded with heavy baggage shell out money.”
Though junior police officers attached to the Sahar airport police station have allegedly complained to the ACP (Airport Division), Janardhan Garje, that senior officials were turning a blind eye to the illegal activities of the loaders, the situation has not changed.
Garje dismissed all inquiries with, “Approach Sahar airport police for information on the loaders.”
Spokesperson for Mumbai International Airport Private Ltd (MIAL) admits that they ‘routinely’ receive complaints from passengers against loaders belonging to the VHES. “We have monitored their activities since May ’06 and even submitted several representations to the city police with details and confiscated I-cards of loaders. But we are unaware of any action action,” he said.
General Manager (Security) Mumbai International Airport Private Ltd (MIAPL), Rajan Nair also has received no response to several complaints he has made to police. Nair clearly enunciated the threat to passengers in his letter to senior police inspector CK Chavan on November 28, 2006. “Passengers using Terminal 2 are being fleeced by touts who claim to be VHES members.
Given that the touts have criminal antecedents, it also poses a security risk to the airport,” wrote Nair.
Om Prakash Patharia, General Secretary of VHES, denied all allegations, “There are a few unknown unscrupulous loaders who indulge in such acts and the authorities conveniently blame my loaders.”
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