Baggage Handlers Caught Stealing On Camera

Four Jet Airways baggage handlers were arrested on Sunday at Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport after being caught on camera stealing Rs 2.1 lakh ($4,000) from a passenger's bag after breaking its seal in the few minutes they had between unloading and transferring cargo to the conveyor belt.

Abhinav Jaiswal, who had arrived in the city on a flight from Imphal along with some friends on Saturday evening, noticed that the seal had been tampered with while collecting the bag.

The businessman immediately lodged a complaint with the airline, mentioning that Rs 2.1 lakh out of the Rs 2.3 lakh he had kept in the bag was missing.

Rajkumar Bose, Ashi Ali Ansari, Dyutish Das and Nepal Turi, all group D employees of Jet Airways, were arrested on the basis of CCTV footage that showed how they broke the seal and took the cash.

"They had denied stealing the money, but Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel scanned the footage and found enough evidence to nail them," an official said.

A search of the baggage handlers' locker room revealed Rs 96,500 in one of the lockers.

Earlier in the day, a senior Indian Oil official arriving in the city from Guwahati on JetLite (now JetKonnect) flight S24364 discovered Rs 9,500 missing from a bag whose seal had been tampered with.

"I reached at 4.40pm but didn't realise the seal had been broken until I opened the bag to pay for something in a Park Street shop. I had kept Rs 10,000 in notes of Rs 500 denomination in the bag. Only one note was left," Ngiken Thoumoung told Metro from Paradip, Odisha.

"I had a night bus to catch and didn't have time to return to the airport and lodge a complaint. I called the airline number at the airport several times on Sunday, but nobody picked up," he said.

Jet Airways has since terminated the services of the arrested quartet, who are in their mid-30s and live in Baguiati, Birati and Dum Dum.

Baggage handlers are mostly employed by agencies to which airlines outsource work, but Jet Airways also has its own staff for such operations. Police said the arrested men had been working for the airline for some time.

Complaints about cash and valuables being stolen from passengers' baggage are common at the city airport. In most cases, security seals are found broken.

A security tape is used as a seal on a registered piece of baggage after it clears the X-ray.

In February, Ushakant Janardan Sonawane, who figures in the rogues' gallery of airport criminals, was caught after a dramatic chase across the domestic terminal building. A passenger had raised alarm after spotting him rummaging through his laptop bag near the conveyor belt.

On January 26, Dipanjan Purkayastha, the vice-president of an MNC, discovered a Dell cellphone, a Blu-ray player, an iPad keyboard, case and stylus, and a toiletry kit missing from his check-in baggage after arriving in the city by a Lufthansa flight from Boston.

Airport officials said there were "several vulnerable points" where such thefts were prone to occur - the baggage segregation area, the X-ray counter at the security hold and the arrival conveyor belt.

"There are several areas that are not under CCTV surveillance. The baggage handlers know these spots and often tamper with security tapes and steal valuables there," an airport official said.

Fortunately for Jaiswal, the quartet who stole his cash on Saturday were in such a hurry that they didn't notice a camera was recording their every move during the crime.

Terminal Illness

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