Security in and around airports beefed up

Mohit Khanna

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, November 29

As road and rail routes have been cordoned off by the police and Income Tax Department following the demonetisation move of the government, some of the wealthy and clever, who had stashed black money, are pondering the idea of boarding chartered flights to evade the risk of getting caught.

However, security has been tightened after passengers were caught ferrying cash at some of the domestic airports of the country. In all incidents, the culprits used charted flights to ferry the cash.

Sources said after the seizure at the airport, high alert was sounded at the relatively non- operational airports only being used for charted flights.

While speaking to The Tribune, Human Resources Department employee of the Sahnewal Airport said “Like other airports, here too x-ray machines have been installed and the Punjab police have been deployed for the checking of the languages.”

Another employee of the airport stated that the charted planes did not frequently fly from the Sahnewal Airport. Sources said the Income Tax Department was collecting details of how many persons had flown from the Sahnewal Airport following the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes.

Sources in the IT said the department was also keeping a tab on how many politicians had used the charted flight post demonetisation. Despite repeated attempts, Dr APS Virk, director Civil Aviation Punjab, was not available for comments.

On the other hand, Congress leader Ishwarjot Cheema said how the luggage of the person whose vehicle went up to the charted plane would be checked. “Money is just changing hands and it is the poor and common man who is suffering following the demonetisation move of the government. In a recent case, a man caught with Rs 3.5 crore cash at the Nagaland Airport was allowed to take the cash shows the involvement of a high rank official in the cash transactions,” said Cheema.