Flier alleges harassment by immigration officers

BANGALORE: A flier to Bangalore has alleged harassment by immigration officers at the Kempegowda International Airport on Thursday. Raziyah Rahman, 22, said the officers abused their power and subjected her to taunts over her sex and religion.
Raziyah had landed at the airport at 5am on Thursday. She was travelling from Hyderabad to Bangalore in a flight coming from Muscat, via Hyderabad.
"As I was feeling nauseous, I left my boarding pass in the flight.At the immigration desk a female officer asked me to step aside for verification. I gave her my name to check on the sequence roster of the flight as evidence that I was a passenger on that particular flight," she said.
By then an Air India employee came with the roster and he found my name on the list. "But to my shock, looking at my Pan card photo in a disparaging way, one of the officers asked whether I was male or female in front of his other colleagues. When I questioned him, he ignored me and pronounced my name in a very peculiar manner several times," Raziyah added.
"When I objected, he read out my father's name and asked what sort of name it was. I told him to pronounce my father's name with respect and prefix Dr to it as he is a renowned doctor in Kolkata. Instead he replied 'don't teach me what to do'. I repeated that this was no way to humiliate me and ridicule my father," she alleged.
FRRO orders inquiry
Ganesh Kumar, foreigner regional registration officer, in charge of immigration told TOI that he had sought a detailed report from the officers blamed by the passenger. "The report is expected in a day's time. From my preliminary enquiry, the passenger was travelling in a mixed flight, which had both domestic and international passengers. The passenger had said she was not carrying her boarding pass. Officers said she was asked to wait for sometime to verify her details with the flight manifesto. The manifesto also had her surname, which led to further checks to ensure she was the right passenger. It did not take much time," he said.
FRRO also said some of the officers alleged that the passenger used racist remarks against them. "The department has ordered an inquiry and a detailed response will be issued," he said. A BIAL spokesperson refused to comment on the matter.