The Brihanmumbai Municipal corporation (BMC) on Friday, January 15, lodged a complaint against its deputy engineer and two other employees for taking bribes from passengers coming from abroad at Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport and illegally exempting them from the mandatory institutional quarantine.
Junior engineer Dinesh Gawande has been suspended with immediate effect and a probe has been instituted, said a BMC release.
The junior engineer and two others have been arrested in this connection by Sahar police, the BMC release added.
Since December 21 last year, the BMC has deployed its staff in three shifts at the airport to ensure travelers coming from the United Kingdom, where a new strain had been detected, are placed in compulsory institutional quarantine.
While keeping a watch, CISF officials brought the issue to the notice of the in charge of night shifts on airport duty and executive engineer of BMC H west ward (Bandra, Khar) Waqar Javed Hafiz. Hafiz then confronted Gawande and interrogated him with the help of CISF.
The BMC then filed a complaint with Sahar police station. Hafiz and CISF officials seized fake stamps and cash from Gawande and submitted a report and eyewitness account to the civic body.
So far, 49,362 passengers who arrived at Mumbai airport from UK and other countries have been placed under quarantine, it said.
Many people, however, demanded exemption from institutional quarantine, which is not allowed. On January 4, the BMC filed an FIR against Bollywood actors Arbaaz Khan, Sohail Khan and his son Nirvaan for skipping the mandatory institutional quarantine after returning from the UAE. According to BMC, the trio allegedly misled the teams at the airport by telling them that they were going to a hotel to quarantine themselves but instead they headed home.
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