Chennai: It’s not wise to have bullets of any kind if you’re taking a flight. For the fourth time in one year, a passenger was hauled up after bullets were found in his baggage. According to the airport police, Monish (24), was scheduled to fly back home to Hyderabad on an Indigo airlines flight on Monday afternoon, and checked his baggage in for scanning. When his large bag was put through the scanner, CISF guards were taken aback to see the outline of three unfired .22 caliber shells inside. He was immediately detained.
The frightened youth was grilled for two hours after which he was handed over to the airport police. The police then began making inquiries and listened to his version of how the bullets ended up in his bag. According to the police, Monish claimed that he had merely picked up the bag from his relatives in Chennai, so that he could use it for an upcoming Bangkok trip. He had no idea that there were bullets inside and claimed that they belonged to his relative - the owner of a licensed gun and bullets.
The police kept him there till late at night. Neither did they “conclude their investigation” nor file a complaint. This indicated that they were either unable to verify the young man’s story or did not find it plausible. The last such bullet scare was on May 7, when a techie from Pune tried to board a flight with a whole gun magazine that he had “picked up” on a bus.
Last year, a similar case had cropped up when a woman had switched bags with her husband, a member of the shooting club, and had put his bullet-storage bag through airport security. Needless to say, both cases raised quite a furore. This time around, security officials were a little paranoid, following the red alert that was issued to all South Indian airports over the weekend.
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