Why 61 passengers with boarding passes skip Malaysia flight at Dhaka airport
Even though 61 passengers of a Malaysia-bound Biman Bangladesh Airlines flight collected their boarding passes at the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport, they ultimately did not board the aircraft.
As a result, the flight departed from Dhaka on Saturday night without a total of 76 passengers.
A source from Biman Bangladesh Airlines mentioned that there were 288 tickets sold for the BG-386 flight to Malaysia.
Among them, 10 were offloaded by the immigration department. Additionally, five passengers were stopped at the boarding gate.
After collecting boarding passes, 61 more passengers did not show up at the boarding gate. Eventually, the flight left Dhaka around 8: 30pm with 212 passengers.
Several attempts were made to contact Biman Bangladesh Airlines spokesperson Boshra Islam by phone for a comment on the matter, but she did not respond. She also did not reply to a text message sent later.
An immigration police source claimed that these 76 passengers were traveling to Malaysia in collusion with a group. Those who were caught were going to work there.
Typically, at the airport, passengers first check in their baggage at the airline's counter and collect a boarding pass. Then they complete immigration by getting a stamp on their passport at the immigration counter. It is the immigration department’s responsibility to verify whether a passenger's passport and visa are in order. After completing immigration, passengers proceed to the boarding gate to board the aircraft.
According to relevant sources, immigration police have measures to identify fake e-visas. Without properly verifying the visas, airline check-in counters issue boarding passes by accepting them as ''verified. ''
Subsequently, immigration also grants them permission to travel abroad. However, at the boarding gate, the visas of five passengers were found to be fake.
Special Branch (SB) officers of the police conduct immigration processes at Shahjalal International Airport. An officer from the SB, tasked with immigration duties, told Prothom Alo that several individuals were detained in immigration due to discrepancies between their passport and visa information. Consequently, the others fled.