India takes up students' case with China

Beijing: Indian government officials on Monday approached the Public Security Bureau of the Chinese government with regard to the case of 150-odd Indian students, who have been sold air tickets of Emirates and Malaysian Airlines that did not work at the check-in counters at Beijing and Shanghai airports, sources in the Indian embassy said.
The Beijing police have sealed the apartment of the main travel agent, Mohammed Jabbar Miyan, a Bangladeshi national, who supplied the tickets to the Indian students in three different universities in China. He has vanished from the scene. A police case has been filed against him by Sumeet, one of the student-subagents used by Miyan.
A group of 22 students, most of them from Hyderabad, got ready to spend their fourth night in the benches at the Pudong airport in Shanghai hoping to get a flight back home. Scores of other students, who have paid money for the tickets, are struck university hostels hoping that fresh tickets will be issued to them.
Emirates Airlines replied to TNN's queries past midnight Beijing time with a emailed statement saying it "sympathises with the passengers who were unable to board the aircraft.”
The airlines said it was investigating the matter but did not categorically state that the tickets were fake. The statement seemed to give credence to suspicion that travel agents may not be fully responsible for the foul play. There could be either a goof-up or some mischief within the Emirates itself.
14/07/08 Saibal Dasgupta/Times of India

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Categories: Foreign Jul 2008