Passenger says how touts posing as officers accosted her at airport

Though touts, it is rumoured, have begun to give the airport a wide berth after a crackdown by the police and CISF, several enterprising ones continue to haunt the premises, but this time in different guises.

Their modus operandi is to approach passengers carrying electronic gadgets like laptops etc, posing to be officers or security officials and ask whether they have cleared the item.

If a passenger is unclear or answers negatively, they then offer to 'clear' the item for a fee, but in dollars.

According to Devika Singh (name changed) who arrived on January 11 with her sister from Amsterdam, she was approached by a bespectacled man enquiring whether she had a laptop, which she denied and the man went away.

However, moments later she removed her laptop from her luggage and was again approached by the same person with the same query and this time admitted that she was carrying one because it was in her hands.
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"I assumed that he was possibly an officer on duty and had questioned me due to security reasons.

But soon I realized that he was not a security official, when he claimed that he would get my laptop 'cleared' for $20, which aroused my suspicion even further since my laptop was within the luggage allowance.
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When I ignored him, he simply walked away."

Devika had passed through the luggage screening without any hassle and thought her troubles were over, but yet again another tout asking for New Year bakshish in Marathi followed her. Once again, she used the excuse of foreign currency being illegal and the person melted into the crowd.

As she was being wheeled out of the airport exit, another man approached her requesting that she give $20 to Kunal, the airline staffer who was pushing her wheelchair.

She hesitated to pay him in foreign currency and expressed concern that he would get into trouble for it. But the tout refused to pay heed to her concerns and began to insist.

However, by now Devika had become curious and asked supposed airline staffer Kunal what would happen, if she did not pay him the $20.

"He said he would lose his job and that they would harass him. He also told me that he would get merely
Rs 100, while the other two touts would pocket the rest," she said.

She also learned from Kunal that this was a regular occurrence at the Mumbai International Airport.u00a0

The Other Side
However, senior commandant of the CISF, Jitender Negi denied that touts operate within the airport. "It is impossible and I will not believe that touts operate inside the airport and touts who were operating outside the airport earlier, no longer allowed to do so," he said.u00a0u00a0u00a0