A female member of Bangladesh Ansar has allegedly stolen foreign currency from the moneybag of a Dubai expatriate at the time of check-in at Sylhet Osmani International Airport. The accused Ansar member is Parveen, 25. She stole 700 Dirham (UAE currency) worth about Tk 16,000 at the time of boarding check on Wednesday last (January 1), alleged the expatriate.
Dubai expatriate Md Masum Uddin, (PP No. BM 0900324), a permanent resident of village Brahmangram under Kanaighat upazila in Sylhet, said that he in that time verbally informed the matter to the officials of airport on Saturday (January 4).
Two Ansar officers named SM Jahir and Harun, refused to search the woman without order from their superiors. They even threatened to cancel his flight. When Masum demanded to see the CCTV footage, they showed him the footage from a different camera.
When asked about the allegation, Hafiz Ahmed, manager of Sylhet Osmani International Airport, on Saturday told the Bangladesh Post, “After receiving the complaint, we searched the accused person and shown our CCTV footage to him. However, we never found any proof of theft. Later, the expatriate departed being satisfied.”
The expatriate, however, denied the statement of Hafiz Ahmed and said that he is unhappy over the incident and behavior of airport officials and employees. He had to leave the airport without any solution or submitting written complaint as his flight time was close at hand.
After reaching Dubai, Masum on Friday posted about the incident on the social media saying, “It is only sad to think that the people whom the government appointed to help the people at Sylhet airport could do such a heinous act of theft and how did her seniors tried to defend the thief.”
Many people, including the expatriates, commented on his post where the expatriates shared their experiences of harassment at Bangladeshi airports. They called upon the authorities concerned to take steps in this regard.