Kolkata: Passengers flying out of Kolkata have been advised to report at least three hours before the departure of the flight because of a sudden beef up in manual frisking at the airport from Saturday evening after the home ministry issued a high alert following intelligence inputs on unspecified terror strike at Indian airports in the wake of the ongoing tension between India and Pakistan.
On Saturday afternoon, senior officials at the airport and CISF personnel held an airport security committee meeting with representatives of all airline officials where they were informed about the tighter security measure that may hold up passengers in the security check area.
“We have started sending text messages to passengers to report at least three hours before flight departure,” said an official of a domestic airline.
Owing to the heightened frisking, the deployment of CISF personnel was doubled at entrances and exits to the terminals. While two CISF jawans usually check tickets and ID of passengers at each entrance, from Saturday afternoon, four jawans were on the job. “The additional personnel have been kept to ensure none slip the zone without furnishing documents. Armed security men have also been kept on standby in case a terrorist attempts to barge in,” said a CISF official.
Inside the terminal, over two dozen plainclothes personnel have been posted to conduct random scanning of passengers on the move. At the security check points, passengers are being asked to remove shoes, belts and accessories and pass them through the scanner. For registered baggage, a layer of manual checking has been introduced even after the bags have passed through the X-ray scanners.
“Airline security persons have been asked to be more careful when the baggage passes through X-ray scanners. But even then, the second layer of manual checking has been introduced at the boarding gate to ensure nothing slips through,” the official said.
04/03/19 Tamaghna Banerjee/Times of India
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On Saturday afternoon, senior officials at the airport and CISF personnel held an airport security committee meeting with representatives of all airline officials where they were informed about the tighter security measure that may hold up passengers in the security check area.
“We have started sending text messages to passengers to report at least three hours before flight departure,” said an official of a domestic airline.
Owing to the heightened frisking, the deployment of CISF personnel was doubled at entrances and exits to the terminals. While two CISF jawans usually check tickets and ID of passengers at each entrance, from Saturday afternoon, four jawans were on the job. “The additional personnel have been kept to ensure none slip the zone without furnishing documents. Armed security men have also been kept on standby in case a terrorist attempts to barge in,” said a CISF official.
Inside the terminal, over two dozen plainclothes personnel have been posted to conduct random scanning of passengers on the move. At the security check points, passengers are being asked to remove shoes, belts and accessories and pass them through the scanner. For registered baggage, a layer of manual checking has been introduced even after the bags have passed through the X-ray scanners.
“Airline security persons have been asked to be more careful when the baggage passes through X-ray scanners. But even then, the second layer of manual checking has been introduced at the boarding gate to ensure nothing slips through,” the official said.
04/03/19 Tamaghna Banerjee/Times of India
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