Nepal Airlines staff involved in trafficking By Krishna Regmi KAHTMANDU, May 21 - A colluded involvement of Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC) staff in human trafficking has been exposed. This was revealed recently after the United Arab Emirates (UAE) warned NAC to stop bringing Nepalis without visa. The UAE has warned it will blacklist NAC if it does not stop dumping passengers without visa at Dubai airport. If blacklisted, the national flag carrier will be barred from flying to Dubai, a lucrative destination where it flies thrice weekly. The warning came from Dubai Immigration Department to NAC through its station manager at Dubai. The warning says the UAE will be compelled to take action as repeated complaints have been ignored by the NAC management. According to our source, UAE has also warned that the state-owned airlines will have to pay 550 Dirham (over 10,000 rupees) per passenger as penalty, if it brings in such passengers, next time. The corporation's own regulations prohibit carrying passengers without visa in flights to countries where Nepalis are not entitled to get on-arrival visa. "It is happening with the nexus between immigration officials, police, manpower agencies and NAC officials," said a source at NAC. According to a highly-placed source at NAC, who requested anonymity, the latest case happened on the last week of April, which stretched till the first week of May. On 23 April, NAC carried 22 passengers, who had no visa and return tickets to Dubai. When the NAC plane returned to Dubai on its subsequent flight on May 1, they were greeted by the same 22 people, stranded at the airport. "The UAE immigration ordered us to take back those passengers," said the source. By then, the stranded Nepalis were once flown to Iraq by human traffickers from Dubai, but brought back and dumped at the same place, the source told The Kathmandu Post quoting one of the victims. However, the plane could not fly back the next day as scheduled because of technical glitches. The glitch remained until May 6. The 22 Nepalis remained at the airport terminal. The corporation took other passengers to the hotel outside the airport. "NAC provided meals to them," said the source. But when the plane was ready to take off, the languishing passengers were nowhere to be seen . "We do not know for sure what happened to them. But, they might have been taken to Iraq again by chartered flight, and hopefully they succeeded in entering the violence-ridden country." Though such human trafficking is impossible without the involvement of immigration officers, P N Sharma, chief of Immigration Office at TIA expressed his innocence. "I do not believe that passengers without visas have reached Dubai. But, in case they have, we will take action against responsible officials. We have records of who issues departure permission to whom," said Sharma. On its part, NAC has also advocated not-guilty. BP Basyal, Marketing Director of NAC said, "The UAE visa comes in a separate paper, so it is quite difficult for us to distinguish the original from the fake." However, the 22 people stranded at Dubai were all without visas, not even fake ones. kantipuronline.com