Body scanners would soon be functional at airport

Muhammad Azam/DTNN

news@dt.bh

Manama

Body scanners would soon be functional at the airport to circumvent the time-consuming and humiliating body scanning procedures at the Salmaniya Medical Complex Pakistani passengers had to endure on reaching Bahrain, DT News has learnt.

Community Welfare Counsillor Maqsood Qadir Shah told the DT News that Interior Minister ensured the Pakistan Ambassador Muhammad Saeed Khan in a regular meeting yesterday that the scanning machines would soon start funtioning at the airport and no Pakistani national would have to be taken to the Salmaniya Medical Complex from then on. Head of Customs was also present at the meeting.  

Earlier, the Pakistan Ambassador had conveyed his reservations to the interior minister regarding the sensitivity of the issue.

He told the minister the Pakistani community was very much concerned about the problem and wanted a permanent solution.

Khan also expressed his reservations about taking of all the passengers collectively for scanning.

He warned drug peddlers to stop smuggling narcotics into the Kingdom, or the ministry of interior would take severe actions against them.

DT News reported three days earlier that Pakistani passengers were being loaded in the lorries from the airport and transported to SMC for body scanning.

During this period, spanning eight to ten hours, no passenger was allowed to even use the toilet. This had become a mental torture for both the passengers and their affiliates.

Generally all of the passengers get clean chit at the end of the whole episole. Apart from the labour class, passengers also included businessmen, doctors and engineers but were treated indiscriminately.

Pakistan community leaders had raised this issue at the open house in Pakistan Embassy and had reiterated their human dignity was being hurt.