Dubai: The immigration department has tightened inspections and checking at UAE airports to find job seekers who arrive in the country on visiting visas. Hundreds of passengers from Kottayam and Idukki districts in Kerala were detained at the airport as they didn’t have proper travel documents. The checking began at Kerala's Kochi and Kozhikode airports.
Checking has become stricter here after passengers were detained in UAE. More than 20 passengers weren’t allowed to board the flight at the Cochin International Airport on Wednesday alone. Meanwhile, up to five persons aren’t allowed to travel at the Calicut International Airport daily.
Until now, at least 30 passengers in Kozhikode had to cancel their journey. The airline companies have been strictly imposing the guidelines that visiting visa holders should possess documents of hotel booking as well as 5,000 dirhams (Rs 1.3 lakh) for their expenses.
Hundreds of passengers who arrived at the airport with just a visa and air tickets couldn’t board the flights. They weren’t allowed to travel even after giving the visa details, phone numbers and addresses of the relatives and friends who were supposed to receive them in UAE. The passengers whose journeys got cancelled weren’t given any refunds; neither were they allowed to reschedule their journeys.
Many of them waited at the airport for hours before returning home. Indigo Airlines officials said that they received the directives regarding the hotel booking document .
