Officials 'extorting money' from passengers at airport

Health officials deployed at the airport intimidate passengers, threatening them with keeping them in quarantine

KARACHI: Intelligence agencies have begun close and strict monitoring of the health officials deployed at Jinnah International Airport and passengers arriving in the city from abroad, after reports surfaced of the former allowing the latter to leave the airport premises without being screened for coronavirus.

Reportedly, health officials deployed at the airport intimidated the passengers, threatening them with keeping them in quarantine, and forcing them into paying money to be able to leave the airport. After paying the officials, the passengers were allowed to leave the airport without being screened for coronavirus, it was alleged.

Health officials are also accused of taking bribes from quarantined persons in exchange for permitting them to leave the airport.

Now, the health officials are being strictly monitored to ensure that passengers arriving from outside Pakistan are allowed to leave the airport only after they pass through a thermal scanner and are cleared of the infection. It is also being ensured that health officials carry out proper screening of all the passengers.

Those detected with the virus are to be quarantined.

The health officials are employees of the federal and provincial government, and not the Civil Aviation Authority.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 6^th, 2020.