RUSSIA: Russian Airline Refuses To Fly Kashmiri Students To Turkey

Russian airline Aeroflot refused to take four Kashmiri students to Turkey from Delhi’s IGI airport on flimsy grounds.

According to the victims, the airline didn’t give any reason but asked the quartet to travel with Turkish Airlines before throwing them out of the terminal building.

The students have filed complaints with the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) and Aeroflot.

Reacting to the incident, the Ministry of Civil Aviation has termed the airline's actions as fishy.

One of the fliers — Mohd Iqbal Rather, a student of Aligarh Muslim University, said: “We reached Delhi airport on Thursday around 1.30am to catch Aeroflot flight number SU 233. When we went to the airline counter, officials told us that we can’t travel to Istanbul with Aeroflot. When we asked the reason, they didn’t tell anything. Later, they asked their colleagues to take us out of the terminal building. We were humiliated despite the fact that we had proper visa, tickets and other documents.”

No official response

Iqbal was traveling with three other students to Turkey to attend a nine-day conference on “Concept of Social Justice in Islam”.

On the other side, Aeroflot officially didn’t respond to a query - but a senior official posted in Delhi airport revealed that the airline didn’t allow the students to travel with them as they had doubts about their identities and documents.

“We allowed two students but other four were doubtful. They didn’t have luggage, money and original invitation of the conference. When we consulted it with Immigration Department, Immigration Bureau informed us that one of the persons has travelled to Pakistan frequently but was unable to provide proper reason for travelling to that country. Besides, the students were not sure about their duration of stay and details of the conference,” the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Mail Today.

Iqbal refuted the airline’s allegation. He said that had it been a case of mysterious identity, immigration or other government agencies would have questioned them.

“We were thrown out of the T-3 building and we came back to Aligarh. The airline staff didn’t allow us to meet Immigration Bureau officials. No one has contacted us even after four days. We had raised a complaint with Aeroflot and they are investigating the matter. The airline has also not refunded our money,” he added.

According to a senior official of the Ministry of Civil Aviation, airline can’t deny boarding on such grounds.

“Aeroflot could have asked immigration department to verify the credentials, details and identity of the passengers. It seems that airlines contacted immigration department, as they were aware about previous journeys of passengers that only Immigration Bureau can access. Airline is in question as they denied giving boarding passes and didn’t refund the amount, which is mandatory if passengers have all documents,” a top ministry official said.

The ministry said that it is a matter of passengers’ right and an inquiry is required.