- Operational body to monitor workers, activities through biometric system, CCTV cameras
Adviser to Prime Minister on Aviation Sardar Mehtab Ahmed Abbasi on Friday approved the formation of a Central Operational Committee (COC) in order to ensure preventing movement of narcotic and contraband items besides foolproof security at all airports.
Chairing a high-level meeting here, he approved formation of the committee, headed by Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) Director General Asim Suleman and comprising officials of all departments concerned including ANF, Customs, Airport Security Force and PIA, and several other measures to improve efficiency of the aviation division.
Among others, PIA chairman and Aviation Secretary Irfan Ilahi, CAA director general, Anti-Narcotics Force Director General Musarat Nawaz, ASF Director General Ali Abbas Haider, PIA’s Acting Chief Executive Officer Naayer Hayat and senior officials attended the meeting.
The meeting was held in the wake of reported recovery of narcotics from flight PK-785 at the Heathrow Airport in London. The meeting decided to hire services of legal experts for the Aviation’s Prosecution Wing to ensure effective perusal of legal cases in the court of law.
In past, Methab said such incidents were dumped, allowing ‘black-sheep’ to flee. He resolved that such acts would not be tolerated or ignored at any cost in future as they were concerned to find out the culprits involved in this reported disgraceful act and the accused would be brought to book soon.
He said the reported incident of narcotics recovery was regrettable as it was the matter of country’s integrity and prestige. He said that the Aviation Division was determined to uplift the standards of PIA and regain its past glory, for which state-of-the-art technology was being installed at airports.
The adviser stressed that there should be a strong mechanism to hold impartial inquiries in such cases and keep a proper record of accused and their networks but to fulfill this dream; “we need to ensure the fastest systems of investigation heading towards accountability of involved factors.”
During the meeting, the adviser was briefed that no official intimation was made by the British authorities yet about narcotics recovery from the PIA plane in London. The meeting suggested ban on entry of irrelevant persons in the engineering section of all the airports, while the activities of the workers should be monitored with the help of CCTV cameras and biometric system.
It was also decided that to minimise the security issues, all planes should be thoroughly checked by the departments concerned after their maintenance to avoid security issues. The ANF officials informed the meeting that the narcotics force was actively keeping an eye on illegal activities of narcotics smuggling all over the country, besides a mechanism was in place to check cargoes appropriately.