Sagar Biswas :The British Aviation Intelligence team sat in a meeting with high officials of Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh [CAAB] on Tuesday to discuss security arrangements of country’s airports, including Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport [HSIA]. The two-member team, arrived in Dhaka on Monday, during the meeting reportedly expressed dissatisfaction over some shortcomings of security arrangements at airports, especially at HSIA. They recommended a ten-point proposal in a bid to rearrange the overall safety measures, officials told The New Nation yesterday.Chairman of CAAB Air Vice Marshal Sanaul Huq led the Bangladesh side during the meeting where members of different intelligence and security agencies were present.Apart from the meeting, the UK team will visit different sections of HSIA during their two-day stay to examine the airport security measures and flight operations of national flag carrier Biman Bangladesh Airlines to different Euro-American destinations. When contacted, Rashed Khan Menon, Minister of Tourism and Civil Aviation, said last night, “The UK team came here to see airport security and they discussed the issue with CAB chairman and others. They pointed out some loopholes in security arrangements.””In this regard, the visiting British team has placed some proposals. We will take initiatives to beef up security in the country’s international airports as per their recommendations….. We are taking clearance from police and detective branch to get information about them who are involved in baggage handling,” the minister said.Officials said, the British Intelligence team expressed deep concern over the incapability of scanning machine operators, and advised the CAAB to provide special training to them to resist terror threat. The British team is now visiting Bangladesh as a part of verifying security arrangement in the South East Asian region following the ‘mysterious explosion’ in a Russian plane in Egypt on October 31, killing all of its passengers.Their main concern was about four direct flights those regularly fly between Dhaka and London. Apart from this, the British team also gave importance about some private airlines those operate direct flights to London from Dhaka, the officials said. Meanwhile, the HSIA has been brought under special security arrangements as per 10-point proposal given by British Intelligence team. The security personnel have started applying new technique to search body of international and local passengers.Particularly, three-tier scanning verification has been introduced to search the luggage of Dhaka-London flight passengers of Biman. Moreover, the Dog Squad of Rapid Action Battalion [RAB] is providing additional support in checking explosives and narcotics, said the officials.Earlier on November 11, another team of British Aviation Intelligence also visited Bangladesh to see the security arrangements of HSIA and other international airports. But after verifying security set-up, the Britons expressed severe dissatisfaction over the safety arrangements, including entrance, scanning machines, immigration system, food supply inside flights, capability of dog squad and protection set-up at cargo village of HSIA.Not only that, the British High Commissioner to Bangladesh Robert Gibson during a meeting with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina expressed anxiety about some weaknesses in airport security arrangements. Later, the British High Commission in a written complaint to Bangladesh government categorically alleged about human trafficking through Biman flights using fake passports and visa.In this backdrop, the British government at the same time imposed restriction over the travelling of Bangladeshi passengers to London through Biman direct flights.
