Yemeni national clears city airport check with 6 bullets
The bullets were found only after a second checking of the luggage.
A 20-year-old Yemeni national was arrested by the Sahar police on Friday night for allegedly carrying six long-range rifle bullets into the Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA). The accused told the police he had come to India for higher studies.
The arrested accused has been identified as Awas Sabahussain Al Irani, 20. Irani came to Mumbai from Yemen on an international flight with his brother and father. The police said he is related to one of the ambassadors from Yemen posted in Delhi.
The three men landed at the Mumbai airport around 4pm on Friday and were to take a connecting flight to Delhi at 9pm. Incidentally, the four-inch-long bullets were not detected by airport authorities after the accused landed at the airport from his country, but were detected during a second check before he could board the connecting flight to Delhi.
The second time around, at 6pm, the private security authorities spotted the bullets while scanning the accused’s luggage and alerted the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) who in turn alerted the Sahar police.
Irani was taken to the police station on Friday night and arrested. Senior police inspector Shashikant Mane of Sahar police station confirmed the development. The police said the language barrier posed a problem as Irani was unable to speak English clearly.
“He was unable to converse properly. But he said that a war is going on in their country and so they keep weapons. He said he had no idea that the bullets were in his luggage. His mother kept them in his jacket which was in the luggage bag. We do not believe him. He did not have any license to keep those bullets,” said a police officer.
Irani was booked under sections of the Arms Act for possessing arms without a valid license. He was remanded to police custody for a day by a magistrate court on Saturday and granted Rs. 50,000 bail on Sunday.