When Bhopal airport security scanned spices as drugs! A 16-year-long wait for justice
The MP High Court has ordered the government to pay Rs 10 lakh compensation to a passenger who spent 57 days in jail for narcotics he wasn't carrying
If this isn’t a nightmarish aviation experience in India then what is? Imagine carrying amchoor and garam masala powder in baggage, the contents being suspected as psychotropic substances, you consequently spending 57 days in jail, and then waiting for 16 years for justice.
This is what happened to an engineer after a security check at the Bhopal airport back in 2010. However, the Madhya Pradesh High Court has now ordered the state government to pay Rs 10 lakh as compensation to the aggrieved individual and asked the chief secretary to ensure that machines installed at forensic labs were functional and operated by trained staff.
Ajay Singh, the engineer, was completing formalities for boarding his flight from Bhopal to New Delhi on May 7, 2010, on way to Malaysia. Security personnel told him the automated explosive trace detector (ETD), during scanning of his baggage, indicated that the packets in question (branded varieties of amchoor and garam masala), weighing 750 grams, contained heroin and Mytheylene Dioxym N-Ethylamphetamine (MDEA).
Singh was stunned. A case was registered under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act in Bhopal and he was sent to jail. The suspicious powders were sent for testing to the regional forensic science laboratory on May 10. After 10 days, the lab returned the samples, saying it did not have the facilities to test it. Singh remained in jail through this period.
The samples were then sent to the Hyderabad-based Central Forensic Science Laboratory. In its report dated June 30, 2010, the lab said no traces of contraband had been found in the samples. Singh was released from prison on July 2. In December 2010, the special NDPS court too discharged him.
In 2011, Singh filed a petition against the state government through senior advocate Ajay Gupta, who argued that the machines at the regional forensic lab were made in Canada and not calibrated to Indian conditions, and their failure had prolonged Singh’s incarceration.
The case continued in the high court till last week, when Justice Deepak Khot ordered the compensation for Singh and directed the Madhya Pradesh chief secretary to ensure inspection of all regional science labs within a month. The compensation is to be paid within three months.
Subscribe to India Today Magazine