Alert airport staffer spots ‘lost’ bag, man gets back Rs 3.36 lakh

Lalit Bhartia, a Bangalore resident, lost and got back his bag containing more than Rs 3 lakh at the Delhi airport within an hour after an alert airport employee spotted the lost luggage.

Lalit Bhartia, a Bangalore resident, lost and got back his bag containing more than Rs 3 lakh at the Delhi airport within an hour after an alert airport employee spotted the lost luggage.

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The incident happened at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport on Tuesday afternoon. The passenger had arrived at the airport from Bangalore in a Kingfisher Airlines flight (IT 204) around 2 pm. On his way out of the airport, Bhartia forgot to take his baggage, which remained at the trolley.

This is when Inderjeet Yadav (27), whose job is to retrieve trolleys left by passengers and put them back in the lot, spotted a polybag in a trolley. The bag was found at the Delhi Transport Corporation counter just outside the airport Terminal 3.

“At first, I couldn’t make out what the bag contained and then thought it could be a bomb,” Yadav said. He immediately informed security personnel at the airport. “They checked it for explosives and found it to be safe. Then they asked me to look inside it.”

What Yadav found inside were wads of currency notes. “We took it to the lost and found facility of the airport, where it was counted,” he said.

The innocuous looking poly bag contained Rs 3.36 lakh.

“There was no address on the bag but it contained the e-ticket of the passenger,” he said. “We got his name and then informed the airlines.”

The airline immediately informed the passenger about the lost bag and by 3 pm, Bhartia was at the airport to pick up his luggage.