A glaring lapse of communication between two agencies and a breach of routine security procedure at Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport on Monday resulted in a passenger from Doha going missing from the airport after he was detained for faking his identity.The man, who identified himself as Watangi Safi Ahmed Gafai, landed at the airport at 4:30 am on Monday on a Qatar Airways fight from Doha. During a routine check, immigration authorities found that the passport he was using, although a genuine document, was not his own. Gafai was then handed over to Qatar Airways, to be sent on a return flight to Doha.“Neither the immigration authorities nor Qatar Airways informed us about Gafai’s detention. We were kept out of the loop,” said Senior Commandant, CISF, Sanjay Prakash.“While his nationality has not been ascertained yet, he appears to be Indian. His passport was either blacklisted by authorities in Qatar, or may have been held back by his employer. However, there is no reason to suspect he was a terrorist,” said a senior officer of the Special Branch which handles immigration at the airport.According to the officer, the passport Gafai was using was issued on November 18, 2005 from Bangalore for a period of 20 years. The place of birth mentioned on it was Belgaum, while the date of birth mentioned was June 1, 1970. Normal procedure required that Gafai be kept in a refusal room at the airport, till the next available flight to his port of origin. However, he was not taken to the room, and went missing from transit.“Under civil aviation guidelines, he was refused permission to land, and was handed over to Qatar Airways. In such circumstances, the passenger is taken to a refusal room. However, the refusal room is under construction at the airport, so he was kept in transit which is beyond the yellow line signifying entry into Indian territory,” said the Special Branch officer.But Manish Kalghadgi, General Manager (Corporate Communications) MIAL, said, “The refusal room is not under construction or renovation. We have provided such a room on the mezzanine floor of terminal 2 A.”According to the CISF, Gafai was not taken to the refusal room. “When a passenger is to be detained in the room, the immigration authorities requisition us to guard the room. We received no such request for Gafai, who went missing at 8 pm on Monday,” said CISF’s Sanjay Prakash.When contacted, a spokesperson for the airlines said, “Qatar Airways does not want to comment on the matter.”
