Costly Gifts from Chef’s Bag go Missing at Airport

Mumbai: Fear of Customs officials at Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport cost chef Javed Ahmed Rs 25,000. Ahmed who suspected his baggage had been tampered with during transit did not check the suitcases at the airport for fear that Customs officials will harass him. He discovered that gifts and electronic items worth Rs 25,000 had been stolen from his bag only after he reached home.
On May 8, Ahmed, 28, who works as a chef in Singapore landed in Mumbai at 11pm by Malaysia Airlines flight MH-194. After collecting his two checked-in baggage from the conveyor belt he moved to the Customs area. Ahmed says, “I saw that one of my suitcases had scratch marks as if someone had tampered with it.”
However, Ahmed was too scared to open the suitcase there and clear his doubts.
So after completing all the formalities Javed left for his residence at Vile Parle, where friends and relatives were waiting to meet him. After dinner with family he was too tired to open his suitcase and forgot about the issue.
The next morning when he opened the suitcase to give presents to his family, he was shocked. “I had bought a costly cam-corder, two Nokia mobile phones which were missing,” he says.
On Thursday Ahmed lodged a complaint with the Sahar police and the airline.
11/05/07 Naveeta Singh/Mumbai Mirror/Daijiworld.com

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Categories: Airports May 2007