When Immigration and Emigration officers arrested and tried to send a Chinese national, who attempted to enter Sri Lanka on a fake passport back to Dubai yesterday (19) morning, the individual and two of his friends had behaved in an unruly manner inside the arrivals terminal of the airport.
Two Chinese nationals and an Egyptian national had arrived at the Bandaranaike International Airport (KIA) from Dubai on Emirates Airlines EK-648 at about 9.50 p.m. on Thursday.
The three persons had arrived at the Emigration and Immigration area for obtaining clearance to enter Sri Lanka about two hours later.
The leader of the group, a Chinese national who was among these three had submitted a passport from the Republic of Guinea in west Africa to an Immigration officer, serving at the arrivals terminal.
Due to some doubts that arose, the Chief Immigration and Emigration Officer had taken steps to submit this passport and his other documents to the Border Inspection Unit located at the airport premises.
Then it had been revealed that this passport had been stolen from a person in Guinea, Africa and the bio-data page details had been changed and transformed into a false passport.
When the Chinese national was questioned at length and facts were revealed, the actual passport of the Chinese individual had been found and it had been confirmed that he was a Chinese national.
However, through observation it had been confirmed that this Chinese national had presented the false passport from Guinea at the Dubai International Airport in order to fly to Sri Lanka.
Then, arrangements had been made to send the Chinese national back to Dubai and to hand him over to Emirates Airlines. At this juncture, the Immigration and Emigration Department at the Katunayake airport had received several phone calls forcing them and trying to influence them not to send back the Chinese individual.
Nevertheless, they had ignored those calls and taken steps to deport the Chinese national and he together with his friends had then created a fuss and misbehaved at the airport. The assistance of the airport security officials had to be obtained to bring these persons under control. One of the Chinese nationals had escaped from the airport security officers and tried to hide in a toilet at the arrivals terminal of the airport.
These three persons had been begging to be let into Sri Lanka and tried offering bribes on several occasions as well.
Once they had been brought under control and when Immigration officials tried to hand them over to Emirates Airlines officials, they had once again behaved in a chaotic manner.
The airport security officials, Emigration and Immigration officials and officials of Emirates Airlines had put in great effort to control them. Then they had taken steps to detain these three persons at the Emirates Air Services detention cubicle until the aircraft arrived.
Emigration and Immigration Officer C. A. B. Kulatunga had taken steps to arrest these three persons and deport them to Dubai, under the supervision of Chief Emigration and Immigration Officers deployed at the Katunayake Airport Arrivals Terminal A. S. G. Sunil and K. D. Sriyaratne, based on the instructions of Controller General of Emigration and Immigration Harsha Iluppitiya and Deputy Controller of Emigration and Immigration (Airport) Jayantha Ratnayake.
(DailyNews)
