ASF Director General Major General Zafarul Haq has said that that airport Security Force (ASF) will court-martial its personnel over manhandling of passengers at Islamabad International Airport in October. DG told this to the Senate Standing Committee for Aviation on Tuesday. The incident took place on October 23.
The incident was filmed on a mobile phone when a Jeddah to Peshawar PIA flight PK-728 was forced to land due to bad weather at Islamabad International Airport. Angry passengers were left on their own and were not provided with food or refreshments for over five hours. The passengers vented out their frustration by protesting and started moving towards the VIP lounge, the brawl occurred when the ASF personnel on duty tried to stop them.
In the footage, passengers and ASF staffers could be seen assaulting as well as using abusive language against each other. An enraged ASF official was also seen spitting at a passenger before hurling a chair at him, the same chair the disgruntled passenger had thrown at the official.
An inquiry committee was formed by ASF which submitted its report and the force decided to court-martial the ASF official involved directly in maltreatment of passengers. ASI Usman will be court-martialed under the Army Act for maltreating the passengers. other ASF personnel will be court-martialed while seven officers including company commander will face summary trial and administrative action. The proceedings of the case will start from Thursday, 5 December and the summary trial will be conducted against the Company Commander Deputy Director Zafar Iqbal for negligence.
The officials who will face summary trial include the shift in charge ASI Kayani and Shift In-charge of CCTV Cameras Sub Inspector Ali Gul.
According to the report, ASF Chief Security Officer Lt Col Jahangir Khan, Additional Director Operations Hidayatullah, Assistant Director (Sector Commander) Mohammad Tariq, have been reprimanded, whereas, Assistant Director Operations ASF police Javed Iqbal has been given warning.
The report said that all the officers mentioned above will be deployed to remote stations along with postings and convictions and their employment privileges and promotion will be stopped for three years.