Delhi airport hosts "Terminal men" for 48 days

New Delhi: Two Bangladeshi men lived in New Delhi airport for 48 days as they did not have passports to return home in a reprise of a role played by Tom Hanks in the Hollywood film "The Terminal", a newspaper said on Thursday.
The men were sent back to the Indian capital by Saudi Arabian authorities in March for arriving without proper papers on a Dhaka-Delhi-Riyadh Air India flight, the Times of India newspaper reported.
Saudi Arabia keeps passports of such visitors and sends them back with emergency travel certificates, the daily quoted an airline spokesman as saying.
But with Dhaka not allowing people without passports to enter the country, the men who had left their homes hoping for lucrative jobs in Saudi Arabia were stuck in the transit lounge of Delhi's Indira Gandhi airport.
Air India spent about $2,500 (1,250 pounds) to feed them and pay for their visits to hospitals for medical check-ups under police escort before the Bangladesh mission issued new passports last week and ended their ordeal, it said.
03/05/07 Reuters.uk, UK

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