NRIs who missed Eid prayers stage protest after Dubai-Mangaluru flight diverted to Kochi

coastaldigest.com news network
June 16, 2018

Mangaluru, Jun 16: Dozens of Mangalurean passengers on board Air India Express (AIE) 814 Dubai-Mangaluru flight resorted to protest at Cochin International Airport (CIA) where they were taken yesterday morning due to bad weather in the coastal city.

The flight that was supposed to land at the Mangaluru International Airport (MIA) at 4.45am. Most of the passengers were Muslims who had planned to offer Eid-ul-Fitr prayers in Mangaluru and celebrated the festival with their family members on Friday. Congregational Eid prayers will be offered in mosques and Eidgahs of Mangaluru between 7:30 a.m. and 8:30 a.m.

However, to the disappointment of the passengers, the flight landed at CIA at around 5.55 am. Even as the AIE staff was making arrangements to take the flight back to Mangaluru, a section of passengers became furious and questioned the authorities of the diversion and delay. They also held protest and shouted slogan against the authorities inside the airport. Though the AIE authorities offered breakfast and other facilities inside the airport, passengers continued their protest near the runway.

The passengers alleged the ground unit, powering the air-conditioning system of aircraft, was switched off making it very difficult for them to sit inside the flight. However, the AIE authorities denied this allegation.

“They told us the flight will be takeoff from Kochi within one hour after another captain arrives. In the meantime, the air conditioning inside the flight was switched off. After the protest, we were made to wait at the runway area in buses,” a passenger was quoted as saying by a news channel.

According to AIE Chief of Airport Services Aby George, the flight was diverted since it was raining heavily in Mangaluru and the visibility was very poor. “We could not land the flight in MIA and the commander diverted it to CIA. We are operating in regulated conditions of DGCA. Once the flight landed in CIA, the weather did not improve and by then the duty hours of the crew on board was over. We cannot make that commander to operate the flight again as per rules. So we had to bring another set of crew from Thiruvananthapuram,” he said.

“We told the passengers that we are planning 9.30am departure. Though we tried to convince the passengers about the bad weather, they protested,” he complained.

Comments

Kumar
 - 
Saturday, 16 Jun 2018

Flights are always like that. They should give compensation

Yogesh
 - 
Saturday, 16 Jun 2018

Unwanted issue. THey used to offer namz evreywhere. If they want they can do that in that situation also. Simply messing up authorities

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News Network
March 29,2020

Chamaranagara, Mar 29: As many as 595 Tamil Nadu-based fishermen, who were working in Mangaluru, crossed the Karnataka border and reached their state via Chamarajanagar on Saturday.

Police said following the lockdown, the fishermen had left Mangaluru in more than 20 vehicles. The fishermen crossed the Karnataka border through Punajur check-post. However, the vehicles returned after dropping them near Hasanur check-post in Tamil Nadu.

As the fishermen had no proper documents, they were stopped by Tamil Nadu Police. However, the police allowed them after screening. The Tamil Nadu government arranged vehicles to ferry them, said a police officer.

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News Network
April 28,2020

Mangaluru, Apr 28: Trucks carrying fish loads from Kerala will not be allowed to enter Dakshina Kannada district as the authorities are not being able to control the rush in markets, state Fisheries Minister and district-in-charge Kota Srinivas Poojary said Monday.

The deputy commissioner has been instructed to restrict the entry of fish transport vehicles from outside the district forthwith, in view of the difficulty in maintaining social distancing at the markets identified in the district, the minister told reporters here.

The coastal district has to take more precautionary measures to fight COVID-19 as the number of positive cases have risen in the last couple of days, he said.

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News Network
January 24,2020

Bengaluru, Jan 24: The JD(S) is looking to leverage anti-Citizen (Amendment) Act (CAA), National Register of Citizens (NRC) and National Population Register (NPR) sentiment sweeping the country to revive itself and will hold protests in Bengaluru and New Delhi.

The Bengaluru protest is scheduled for Friday. At a meeting of party workers in Bengaluru on Thursday, party patriarch HD Deve Gowda and former chief minister HD Kumaraswamy urged the rank and file to participate in the rally to send out a loud and clear message to the BJP.

"The BJP has set out to make Muslims second-grade citizens. India has 40 crore Muslims, can these communal forces eliminate them all?" Gowda said in his address. "We should have the guts to launch a massive protest at Jantar Mantar. We should be prepared to go to jail in the fight against [Prime Minister] Narendra Modi and [Union home minister] Amit Shah."

Gowda said he will lead the rally in Delhi and urged secular parties to unite to take on the BJP. "It is important that regional parties, which share a secular ideology, unite on a common agenda and fight the BJP. Bihar, Kerala and Odisha have said they will not implement CAA. The sentiment is likely to spread to other states," Gowda said.

Kumaraswamy said not only Muslims but many other communities will also bear the brunt of BJP’s "divisive politics". "This pair of Hakka-Bukka [Modi and Shah] is not targeting Muslims alone," he said. "For them, all communities other than upper caste Hindus are inferior Shudras. They will treat even Lingayats, Vokkaligas and Dalits with the same contempt."

The former CM made a special appeal to Lingayats, who generally back the BJP, to stop supporting the saffron party’s caste-oriented politics. "You had appreciated my farm loan waiver scheme and promised support in the elections. But, the results were contrary to that," he said.

The JD(S) passed three resolutions including one to condemn the Centre for enacting CAA. The others were to protest against the Centre’s indifference to the floods in the state and the failed economic policy of the Centre.

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