Sunday Snippets
By Venkatesh Raghavan
Late night encounter to rescue stranded Haj pilgrims
I recall a late-night adventure I had in my journalist life in the second-half of the nineties-decade. My mom had gone out of town. My dad and I were at home. I was couching on my cot in the hall, viewing a West Indies versus New Zealand test match. It was around 1.30 a.m. and the Windies were cruising comfortably in their batting essay, having crossed the 500 mark. As I kept watching, cheering them silently, the doorbell rang. I was totally unprepared for a visitor at such an unearthly hour. When I opened the door, I found it was my neighbourhood friend Mohammed.
I asked him, “Is it an emergency? Can’t the matter wait till morning?” Mohammed replied, “You have to come and attend to it urgently. Things are getting out of hand. I have parked my bike below your building. Please get ready. We are running out of time.” I quickly informed my dad, “It is an emergency call and as a journalist, I was duty-bound to honour it. I will be back soon after my assignment gets completed.”
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Adorning my jeans, I quickly mounted on the backseat of Mohammed’s two-wheeler. As the bike was racing at full speed, with the wind blowing against my face, I asked him, “Where are we headed to?” Mohammed responded with, “I am taking you to the outsides of the Sahar airport. There are a group of Muslim pilgrims who have landed into serious financial crisis.” I probed further asking, “Why have these pilgrims landed in Bombay? Have they been deplaned or de-boarded by their flight operator?” Mohammed then filled me up with the dope: “They are a group of Haj-bound pilgrims. They responded to an advertisement placed in a local newspaper that was circulated in rural Maharashtra. The advertisement promised them a pilgrimage to Haj and back at very concessional rates, significantly lower than the cost they would incur if they chose to avail the government subsidy. They all bit the bait and paid in cash to the said tour operator. They set off from their rural homes and arrived at the Sahar airport.”
“So far the narrative sounds alright. What went wrong for these guys?” “On arriving here, they found that all the documents including the tickets that were handed over to them were bogus and their tour operator had abandoned them without any trace. They are now left to their own means to fend for their food requirements besides being unable to fund their return homeward journey,” informed Mohammed. “How long is it since they are stranded here,” I queried. “It’s more than 24 hours. I first asked them to file a police complaint at the Sahar airport. After initial reluctance to register a FIR, with the policeman saying, “Harshad Mehta ka kuch nahi hua. Aap ka kya honewala hai? (Even in the Harshad Mehta case, there was no breakthrough. How do you people expect to get justice).” It was around 2.15 a.m. when I and Mohammed arrived at the spot.
I had an elaborate chat with all the pilgrims, learning how they were duped into parting with their money and what it took them to survive in the open air without any roof or means of affordable food. A tea vendor cropped up at the site. The pilgrims wanted me to have tea. I politely refused telling “you people are hard-pressed for money. Please save it for your requirements”. They however, insisted and I continued conversing with the pilgrims till I finished sipping the brew. Mohammed and I subsequently entered the Sahar police station. I asked the duty officer there to show me the FIR that was registered against the tour operator. After completing my inquiries with the cops, I bade farewell to the abandoned pilgrims, stating, “The news will be out in another 24 hours.”
It was around 4 am when I returned home. After going through my routine visits to the city’s crime spots, including my visit to the Crime Branch offices housed in the police headquarters at Crawford market, I filed the story on abandoned pilgrims late evening. A few days later, Mohammed dropped in and thanked me for the effort. “The travel operator has been arrested. Also, arrangements were made for these rural pilgrims to safely return to their respective homes.”
I narrate this as it yielded me a sense of fulfilment. Looking back, I felt happy playing the role of a newsman on a 24×7 basis.
