26-year-old returning from South Africa loses goods worth Rs 60,000
26-year-old returning from South Africa loses goods worth Rs 60,000
A Mumbai-based woman found that the valuables in her hand baggage, which the groundstaff of an airline she was traveling in insisted that she hand over, were missing once it was reclaimed.
Poonam Parulekar (26) was returning from South Africa via Dubai to the city and when she reached Mumbai Saturday late night, she realised that her bag had been tampered with and valuables worth approximately Rs 60,000 were missing.
Ms Parulekar, a resident of Chembur, and a software engineer, had travelled to Johannesburg, South Africa for business, a few months ago. While returning, she had booked on an Emirates Airways flight from Johannesburg to Dubai and another connecting flight from Dubai to Mumbai.
From Johannesburg, she boarded the EK 768 at about 9.20 am and landed at Dubai around 7.30 pm. Later she was booked to travel on EK 500 of Emirates Airways, on the same day at 9.50 pm.
“I had two handbags with me. But as I was about to board the connecting flight from Dubai, a ground staff of the airline insisted that I hand over one of my handbags to be loaded into the cargo compartment as there would be no space in the overhead luggage compartment. I trusted them to take care of the bag as there were valuables in it.”
Ms Parulekar further said, “When I reached the Mumbai airport, I collected my bag from the baggage claim area. When I returned home and checked the bag, I found valuables worth Rs 50 to Rs 60,000 missing.”
Ms Parulekar then wrote an email to the airline regarding the incident. She wrote in the mail that her three expensive watches, two diamond earrings, a purse and a ring, which were kept in a plastic pouch, were missing. “My bag was completely tampered with and the gift packets in it were also unpacked,” said Ms Parulekar.
An official from Emirates Airways, commenting on the incident, said, “We will look into the matter and will check what went wrong.”
