Post News Network
Bhubaneswar, Feb 27: A retired army man and his daughter were allegedly assaulted and humiliated by workers of a parking slot at Biju Patnaik airport Friday. This is the third case of visitors being manhandled by airport staffers within a month, sources at Airfield police station said.
Captain (Rtd) Bhabani Shankar Dash (68), a resident of Shiksha Vihar, had come to the airport with his daughter to pick up his son-in-law.
“My son-in-law was waiting at the arrival gate and within three minutes of my entry into the airport precincts, we picked him up and left. But at the exit, a bunch of hooligans surrounded our car and demanded `40 as parking charge. I refused to pay as I did not spend more than five minutes,” Dash said.
As per parking rules at the airport, vehicle owners have to pay `40 if they exceed five minutes.
“The parking staff behaved as if they are immune to laws of the land,” Dash said. “They misbehaved with my daughter and manhandled her,” he added in his complaint.
Airfield police lodged a case and arrested a parking staffer, identified as Jitu Reddy (22), a resident of Airfield, who allegedly harassed the captain and his family while another accused in the case is absconding.
Earlier this month, a woman was assaulted by parking staffers, who were later arrested. A similar case was lodged January 25.
The airport parking lot is run by a retired Colonel, Routray, who obtained the contract after depositing `1.5 crore as security money with the Airports Authority of India. The contractor
is required to pay `14 lakh a month to the AAI as fees. A police officer said Routray throws his weight around
and gets off citing his Army credentials whenever the police intervene in
such cases.
Inspector in-charge Rashmi Ranjan Sahu said he has been receiving complaints lately against parking staffers. When airport director Sharat Kumar was contacted, he absolved himself saying, “We are only responsible for something that happens inside the airport, and not outside the terminal.”
