Aviation minister orders probe into IIA brawl

RAWALPINDI: Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar said on Wednesday that the ministry will form a three-member court of inquiry to investigate the events leading to scuffle between PIA passengers and Airport Security Force (ASF) personnel at the Islamabad International Airport (IIA).

An officer of the rank of brigadier will lead the inquiry with one member from ASF and another the Aviation Division, he said.

Sarwar ordered the inquiry after mobile phone footage surfaced on the internet showing scuffle between ASF personnel and passengers at IIA.

In the footage, the passengers and ASF staffers could be witnessed assaulting as well as using pejorative against each other.

An enraged ASF official can then be seen spitting at a passenger before hurling a chair at him, the same chair the disgruntled passenger had thrown at the official.

The ASF has launched a departmental inquiry under CSO Colonel Jehangir against one of the officials who allegedly initiated the brawl.

A PIA spokesman clarified that no staff member of the national flag carrier was involved in the incident. He said that the investigation was being done by aviation division.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 24^th, 2019.