By Prabhjot Singh
A TINY beep while walking through a metal detector was enough for the security staff at the Brussels International Airport to ask me to step aside. A senior security official, carrying a hand-held metal detector, appeared from nowhere to check me again, before asking me if I could take off my turban for scanning.
“What for?” I asked, shocked at the turn of events, “you can move your metal detector or have a swab check of my turban.” But he insisted that I take off my turban. He pointed towards an adjoining mirror-fitted room, saying I could tie my turban afresh after the scan.
All my suggestions for a “turban check without humiliation of taking it off” failed to convince him. He insisted that I move to the special room, take off my turban, stay inside and after the test, tie it again. “I have to do my duty,” he said apologetically, pointing in the direction of the room. Following me in the queue were several turbaned Sikh passengers.
Caught both in a piquant and an embarrassing situation, I quietly walked to the room. A security official carrying a tray followed me and asked me to put my turban in the tray, which was then passed through a scanning before being handed back to me.
Still shocked, I picked my turban and tied it again, before walking out. As I picked my handbag, another security official, a woman, wanted to look inside it. Besides some organic butter, I had a small steel needle (baaj) in my kit bag. The senior security official who had earlier asked me for turban check, intervened and asked her to allow both butter and the needle as it was used for tucking the hair inside the turban.
I then moved towards the departure gate, avoiding any further conversation with the security staff.
Normally, I avoid carrying baaj in my kit, as once earlier, at an airport in North America, the security did not even allow a nail-clipper. This time, however, I missed checking the kit. But the security allowed this sharp six-inch steel needle in my carry-on baggage.
As I sat at the gate waiting for the boarding to start, I wondered if any of the other Sikh passengers experienced similar humiliation.
I was reminded of a conversation I had had with a Canadian MP, a clean-shaven Sikh, who had issues with security personnel at airports in Canada. Once, he was singled out from the official parliamentary delegation to undergo special security check. Irked by the security picking on him every time he flew, he threatened to raise a privilege motion in the House of Commons.
Walking to a duty-free shop selling multipurpose Swiss and other knives, he called for the security chief for an explanation how lethal knives were being sold in the security zone. The security chief was taken aback.
Though subsequently all duty-free shops were checked and asked to remove knives from their sale counters, forks and knives are freely available at all eateries in departure lounges for any anti-social element to pick and abuse, the MP insisted, taking a dig at “foolproof” security at airports worldwide.
Recalling his experiences came as a consolation to me, though only temporarily.
