CM rescues dancer from the clutches of immigration

Kolkata: Buddhadev Bhattacharya has bailed out a PYT — pretty young thing — stranded at Kolkata airport without a passport.
Nikita Bhattacharya, an 18-year-old dancer, returned from Singapore without her passport.
The pretty woman apparently lost the passport while changing planes at Bangkok. Nikita and six other artistes belonging to the group Sapphire Creative Dance Workshop were invited to Singapore by the Tagore Society for a performance. Nikita's businessman father Prasanta Bhattacharya begged IAS and IPS officers for help but nothing happened. As a last resort he met the CM's personal secretary. When details of the unusual case were conveyed to Buddhadev, he assured Prasant that Nikita would be released if he signed a personal bond. The CM's instructions were communicated to immigration authorities who promptly freed Nikita.
At Bangkok airport she somehow lost her pasport and the Bangkok-Kolkata boarding pass. Thai Airways gave her a fresh boarding pass and allowed her to board the Kolkata-bound plane saying that as an Indian national Nikita’s passport woes would be best dealt with in India.
But immigration authorities at Kolkata airport accused Thai Airways of violating aviation regulations by flying a person without any travel documents and ordered the airlines to fly Nikita back to Bangkok so that she could report the theft of her passport to Bangkok airport police. Explaining the procedure, they said the Indian embassy in Bangkok would issue a duplicate passport on the basis of the police report.
Nikita's father argued with immigration authorities that if the passport was found, Bangkok airport police would surely despatch it to Kolkata - so there was no need to send Nikita back to Bangkok. So immigration authorities granted her 36 hours before she would be flown back to Bangkok.
Prasanta then started running from pillar to post. And at last, the CM cut the bureaucratic red tape like a knife through butter.
17/05/07 S. N. M. Abdi/Kolkata Calling/Khaleej Times, United Arab Emirates

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Categories: Airports May 2007, Foreign May 2007