Aviation security and parliamentarians

Aviation security and Parliamentarians

This week I recorded my 75^th un-actioned complaint in the Civil Aviation Authority’s complaint register.   Spread over last  10 years these complaints relate to a single anomaly – the special Parliamentarians’ check-in counters at the Karachi and Lahore airports.  Regretfully the CAA has no tradition of ever responding to complaints, except in most meaningless and  sterile expressions like “your complaint  has been forwarded to Senior Terminal Manager for comments”.

The special “ Parliamentarian” counters are intended  to provide exclusive ‘queue-less’ preferential treatment to our lawless and militant ruling class. Responsible for ensuring  equal rights and equal treatment for all citizens,  it is the same class that insists and demands special quotas and  preferential counters for themselves (often reserved for the handicapped in more civilized countries.)

As a citizen I protest against this colonial apartheid and ask the government to get rid of all such discriminatory counters from all airports and other institutions. Also considering that the parliamentarians are the most armed and militant individuals of Pakistan (69473 prohibited bore arms licenses issued to them in the last six years) their security checks and personal search must be doubled.

The CAA ought to rethink its security and risk-assessment process. Only last week, a terrorist  parliamentarian along with his private militia of 30 armed goons attacked a police station in Faisalabad, beat up the police officials and forced the release of criminals in police lock-up.

Would it be long before the  next hijacking or the next attack on an airport is executed by an equally ‘honourable’  parliamentarian and his private army.

Sent on 26 July 2014