Detained air passengers leave officials confused

Chennai: Security agencies at the Chennai airport on Wednesday had a tough time deciding upon further action against thr­ee passengers whom th­ey had detained.

The officials found to their dismay that a passenger who arrived from Singapore and was det­a­ined based on a look-out circular (LOC), was no longer wanted by the police.

Airport security age­n­­cies were in a quan­d­ary following the se­iz­ure of 60 kg of seas­hells from two domestic passengers as they were not sure if if this was a banned item.

Anbarasu, 44, from Jayamkondam, the passenger against wh­om the LOC was issued in 2010, was detained at ni­ght by the immigration officials, but in the morning, St Thomas Mo­unt CCB officials in­­f­­ormed the imm­igr­at­i­on officials that he was not needed in connection with the case any more. So the passenger was allowed to go.

Two passengers – Moha­m­m­ed Nasser, 44 and S. Pandian, 40 - tra­ve­lling to Imphal via Ben­­gal­u­ru, who were carrying 60 kg of sea­sh­ells were initially st­o­p­ped by the CISF gua­r­ds during a check. The CISF tried handing them over to the cu­st­oms officials, who re­f­used to take th­em, saying that they had no mandate to arr­e­st passengers carrying seas­h­ells.

Finally, officials from the wil­dlife dep­ar­tment ag­re­ed to book the two as the officials found a re­ce­ntly ame­n­d­ed Act pr­ohibits poa­c­h­ing of ei­ght kinds of seashells. The officials found that there were three kinds of such seashells in the consignment that the two were carrying and booked them.