- Bribe Fighter
- 14 years ago
- 1741 views
I feel ashamed to be called an Indian everytime I land at Mumbai airport
Dear Sir/Madam,
I have spent several years of my life abroad & I travel abroad at
least 4 times a year for business.
Each time I arrive at the Mumbai airport I feel ashamed to have an
Indian tag, each an every customs officer (I am not exaggerating,
literally even the senior officers and the havaldars) is just looking
to catch people with stuff they have with them and harass them. Many
passengers are aware that there is a way to settle by negotiating and
that is the easy part the officer agrees to an amount and a havaldar
escorts the passenger to a room which is not covered with cameras and
gets paid in any currency. Worst is for passengers who have no clue
about this they are told that they will have to pay import duty as per
the items they have with them and are asked to cough up or else their
articles will be confiscated, this applies to families with infants
and even the elderly. The last resort for these guys is to tell the
passenger to buy 2 bottles of liquor and hand it over to the havaldar,
by the way this money is paid by the havaldar and not the passenger
and this liquor too is stored in this very room which is adjacent to
the senior customs officer who too is aware of these events, I would
love you guys to blow the lids off these guys head and make life easy
for the millions who land each year. One more thing it is also us
Indians to be blamed, many approach the officer on their own to settle
by paying a couple of thousand rupees and avoid any duty.
At any given time the havaldars have money in their pockets in all
sorts of currencies, the customs officers are smart they do not
physically handle the money it is these havaldars who are used as a
bait.
A concerned Indian citizen