Petty crimes like passenger misbehaviour and theft of baggage or cargo at airports or on board the planes are on the rise but are not being reported.
BANGALORE: A pickpocket caught at a railway station can end up in police custody but the chances are that a thief in an airport can go scot-free.
Petty crimes like passenger misbehaviour and theft of baggage or cargo at airports or on board the planes are on the rise but are not being reported, says Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS). Airlines confirm this but argue that these are too petty to report. Some of these crimes are potential air security threats and can complicate matters in devising safety strategies, said BCAS chief SR Mehra.
Mehra is not talking just about pickpockets. Even manhandling of passengers, passenger misbehaviour, theft of baggage and cargo are being settled internally without being reported to the security regulatory body, the BCAS, or the executive body, the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) or even the state police. In cases like these, passengers are compensated and the incident is hushed up, says an official.
There is no precise estimate of the number of these minor crimes but officials say they notice at least one happening at each major airport every day which is enough to cause alarm. “Even cases of passengers rushing to emergency exits to open them, for whatever reason, are not reported,” says one official.
“Only one or two cases are registered with us every month,” says inspector DP Sidam at airport police station in Mumbai. “Our passengers are not keen on reporting any petty thefts and hence we don’t insist on carrying the matter forward,” said Vijaya Menon of Air Deccan.
An official from Indian Airlines added, “Reporting small crimes is time-consuming and involves complex procedures. We can’t keep running to them every time something happens.”
A Spice Jet executive candidly admits that the airline doesn’t report “99 per cent” of minor incidents since security agencies are not clear about categorising the nature of crime for legal action. An official admits that he has come across many thefts of money from passengers that go unreported.
Security officials are worried that if petty criminals are not reported terrorists may use them for bigger crimes. If the nature and extent of this kind of crime is reported, an official says, security agencies can design security strategies accordingly.
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