Fliers taste bitter ban on sweets

Kolkata: Believe it or not, Bengal's famous sweets rosogolla, mishti doi and makha sandesh have come under the security scanner at NSCBI Airport.
Passengers taking the city's famed sweet souvenirs for friends and relatives have been in for a rude shock when security personnel restricted them from carrying sweets on board in traditional earthen jars or paper boxes. The practice was quite common till a fortnight ago.
The damper has been thrown in by a recent circular from the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS), the nodal agency that formulates security policies in the airline industry. Officials fear liquid explosives can be smuggled on the flight if sweets with sugar syrups are allowed.
For the sake of security, those with a sweet tooth have to suffer now. Airline sources conceded that earlier, there was hardly any flight to a metro city that did not have a passenger carrying Bengali sweets.
Though CISF has put up the ban notice at the airport terminal, most passengers are still clueless and stream in with earthen pots and polythene bags loaded with goodies.
If these are packaged in leak-proof containers, they will be allowed as add-on registered baggage. Otherwise, passengers can hand them over to relatives at the segregation point. Or else, they will simply have to leave them with security officers. Airlines officials said in most cases, passengers are in a hurry and the third option is preferred.
The sudden urgency is apparently over renewed threat perception in the region following intelligence inputs of terrorist and Maoist activity. Airport director R Srinivasan clarified that the prohibition was enforced a long time ago but made more stringent recently.
13/07/09 Arpit Basu/Times of India

To Read the News in full at Source, Click the Headline

Categories: Airports Jul 2009, Safety Jul 2009