A police inquiry was launched on Tuesday into employees from Continental Airlines after a former president of India was frisked before boarding a flight to the US.
The airline’s staff violated a government order on protocol for dignitaries when former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam was told to remove his shoes and scanned by a metal detector, Indian Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel told parliament.
Patel said airlines are given a list of Indian VIPs who should be exempt from searches.
“This act of frisking the former president ... is absolutely unpardonable and beyond the scope of the laws of our country,” Patel told parliament.
Lawmakers condemned the search of the 77-year-old Kalam as “outrageous.”
In a police complaint, the aviation ministry accused Continental’s staff of violating government directions, an aviation ministry statement said.
“If convicted, the staff members can be jailed for two years or fined 1 million rupees [US$20,830], or both,” said Moushmi Chakravarty, the ministry spokeswoman.
Kalam, who was president from 2002 to 2007, allowed the search at New Delhi’s international airport without complaint, said an official who works in his office. The official requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
The former president was told to remove his shoes and the contents of his pockets, and a handheld metal detector was run over his body.
A spokeswoman for Continental Airlines Inc defended the search as a “normal security procedure,” said the Press Trust of India news agency.
“There is no special rule for VIPs ... This is the process the airline adheres to,” the spokeswoman identified only as Aparna was quoted as saying.
The Houston-based airline did not immediately respond to a request from The Associated Press for comment.
The incident happened in April but was reported on Tuesday by local TV networks.
Eleven people, including a former minister, were arrested in Serbia on Friday over a train station disaster in which 16 people died. The concrete canopy of the newly renovated station in the northern city of Novi Sad collapsed on Nov. 1, 2024 in a disaster widely blamed on corruption and poor oversight. It sparked a wave of student-led protests and led to the resignation of then-Serbian prime minister Milos Vucevic and the fall of his government. The public prosecutor’s office in Novi Sad opened an investigation into the accident and deaths. In February, the public prosecutor’s office for organized crime opened another probe into
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
YELLOW SHIRTS: Many protesters were associated with pro-royalist groups that had previously supported the ouster of Paetongtarn’s father, Thaksin, in 2006 Protesters rallied on Saturday in the Thai capital to demand the resignation of court-suspended Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and in support of the armed forces following a violent border dispute with Cambodia that killed more than three dozen people and displaced more than 260,000. Gathered at Bangkok’s Victory Monument despite soaring temperatures, many sang patriotic songs and listened to speeches denouncing Paetongtarn and her father, former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and voiced their backing of the country’s army, which has always retained substantial power in the Southeast Asian country. Police said there were about 2,000 protesters by mid-afternoon, although
MOGAMI-CLASS FRIGATES: The deal is a ‘big step toward elevating national security cooperation with Australia, which is our special strategic partner,’ a Japanese official said Australia is to upgrade its navy with 11 Mogami-class frigates built by Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles said yesterday. Billed as Japan’s biggest defense export deal since World War II, Australia is to pay US$6 billion over the next 10 years to acquire the fleet of stealth frigates. Australia is in the midst of a major military restructure, bolstering its navy with long-range firepower in an effort to deter China. It is striving to expand its fleet of major warships from 11 to 26 over the next decade. “This is clearly the biggest defense-industry agreement that has ever
RSS