The move comes following the recent incident where Head Constable Sovit Karki was found involved in smuggling foreign currency amounting to Rs 12.4 million in value in the big pockets of his uniform. [break]
According to Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIGP) Narayan Bastakoti, who is also chief of TIA security, police banned the dress as a preliminary step to prevent the involvement of security personnel in smuggle and to stamp out bribe-taking at the airport.
In June 2009, the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) had also come up with the idea of mandating pocketless trousers to clamp down on bribe-taking at the country´s main airport. After recognizing the widespread corruption at TIA, CIAA had directed the Ministry of Civil Aviation to implement the decision at the earliest. But officials at TIA did not do so in practice.
Police at TIA said they have 56 duty points at the international terminal and 14 at the domestic terminal and around 450 police are on duty in three shifts.
A police officer said, “I am surprised how a single constable succeeded in carrying that amount of money into the toilet in the sterile zone at TIA, evading all five major security checks.” He added that involvement in smuggle was not possible without the protection of some higher authority.”
DIG Bastakoti said that the probe panel has started looking into the case and its report will soon make everything clear.
He said, “Existing proof shows that Head Constable Karki, the driver of SSP Raviraj Shrestha, was involved in assisting Binod Kumar Soni [in the smuggling] and further investigations will uncover others involved.”
But Bastakoti did not wish to talk too much about Karki, who is supposed to be a confidante of SSP Shrestha and is now absconding. “Though we have some shortcomings in vigilance and physical infrastructure, that doesn´t mean security at TIA is loose,” he added.
He said, “Though CCTV and the latest x-ray devices could be installed it takes time to create an environment where we can trust each and every police officer deployed at the airport.”
Another probe formed
Police headquarters on Monday formed another panel, under Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Devendra Subedi of the Crime Investigtion Division of the Metropolitan Police, to probe the TIA currency haul. Other members of the panel are SP Suresh Bikram Shah, DSP Arun BC and DSP Sukhdev Neupane.
The panel has four days to investigate the security lapses.
Police on Saturday had formed a probe under DIG Parshuram Khatri to report on the smuggling incident within one week.
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