A nightmare for couple at Paris airport

New Delhi: Hamhanded French officials at Paris's Charles de Gaulle Airport put a helpless Indian couple through hours of humiliation and bullying before bundling them onto a flight back home.
Farmer K.N. Ashok Kumar and his wife Meenakshamma from Karnataka's Hassan district were in transit in Paris, and headed for Finland to meet their son K. A. Darpan Gowda, when they were stopped by the French officials.
Over the next 20 hours on the morning of August 26, Kumar, 59, and his 46-year-old wife, who were on their first flight, were grilled by the officials. They were asked for the invitation letter from their son in Finland, ordered to stay put and stay quiet because they could not provide it right away, and were rendered incommunicado by having their mobile phone snatched from them.
Bewildered and cowering under their gaze, they could not muster the courage to ask the officials why they were being detained in Paris when they were headed for Helsinki.
They had spent a small fortune on the air ticket to meet their son. To them, his was an Indian success story too - a young man who had made his way from a farmer's house in Hassan to Tampere in Finland to work as a software professional.
But, the French officials had destroyed their dream and offered no explanation. "All the 20 Indians on the Air France flight that my parents took from Bengaluru International Airport were stopped at Paris and asked to show their passports. We don't have any objection to checks. In today's world it is necessary. But, while the other 18 were allowed to go after the passport check, my parents were held back with no explanation," said Ashok Kumar's elder son Dr K.A. Darshan Gowda, who is in Karnataka.
Darpan added that the couple was carrying only E250 (about Rs 17,420) with them.
"Perhaps the French officials thought that my parents were too poor, but couldn't they check with my brother in Finland or the Indian authorities?" It turned into a gruelling 20hour drama for the Kumar couple that began on the morning of August 26 (6.45 am French time) when they landed in Paris and ended with their arrival at the Bengaluru International Airport, the next day - heartbroken and beaten. Efforts to contact the French embassy in New Delhi for its reaction to the incident proved futile.
31/08/09 Sowmya Aji/Mail Today/India Today

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Categories: Airports Aug 2009, Foreign Aug 2009