Our airports

By A. H. M. Rezaul Karim, AIT, Thailand
21 January 2006, 18:00 PM
I would like to thank Mr. Shafiq Islam and Mr. Aziz Mallick for their valuable comments about Zia International Airport. I would like to add two instances of my personal experience in this regard. I am a student of AIT, Thailand. I had travelled to Bangladesh to attend the conference ICNEWS'06. I chose the Chittagong airport since it's a little bit cheaper than travelling to Dhaka from Bangkok.

At first when I was entering Bangladesh, I found the lock of my luggage completely broken. And I did not receive any acceptable answer from the on-duty officers. In fact, I was advised by someone to leave the airport as soon as possible to avoid harassment, since I had already made them angry as I was asking questions. Secondly, when I was leaving Bangladesh I was standing in the queue for immigration. Two people were in front of me in the line and both of them were travelling abroad for the first time. One was a university teacher and the other gentleman was an officer of an NGO. Since they were new they came without filling the embarkation card. The immigration officer pronounced some shameful words ("egulu ekta o card fill up koree ashe ni, abar line e daraise") .

That's the way our immigration officers behave at the airport. They forget that they are the face of the country. They just do whatever they like.

We the people at home and abroad expect the authorities to take the necessary steps so that passengers are treated in a much better way in our airports.