The veiled girl, who boarded a Chittagong-bound aircraft of US-Bangla on Tuesday night without necessary papers, is innocent and has no militant link, according to airport staff and law enforcement agencies.
Samia Islam, 22, a second year student of computer science department at East-West University, boarded the flight after a brawl with her parents, officials said. Hailing from Comilla, she used to live with her parents in the capital.
“We along with other intelligence officials interrogated the girl and her family members for a long period but did not find anything suspicious,” Alamgir Hossain, senior assistant superintendent of the Armed Police Battalion, told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.
“She was also frisked but we found nothing. She even did not have money. Actually, she was angry with her parents for forcing her to take computer science though she liked fine arts. She had an altercation with her mother after which she left home and boarded the plane,” he said.
It was the duty of the aircraft officials at the Dhaka airport to check her boarding pass, he added.
Asked why the flight officials had failed to identify the girl, ASP Alamgir said: “The aircraft officials informed us that they had a tight schedule in the evening when a huge number of flights leave the airport.”
The incident created much hype on Tuesday evening after a passenger of the flight shared a post on Facebook about the presence of a suspicious girl. The passenger said that others on board the plane were also panicked after discovering the girl in the passenger row. They also questioned security system at the airport and criticised the private carrier.
The aircraft was scheduled to leave for Chittagong. But at the eleventh hour, the officials found that there were 72 passengers instead of 71, Kamrul Islam, deputy general manager of public relation at US-Bangla, told the Dhaka Tribune.
“Then we asked the passengers to show their boarding passes and found that one girl could not show hers. Later, we handed her over to the law enforcers.
“The flight was delayed by around half an hour. We settled the issue successfully,” he added.
Dhaka Tribune could not reach Wing Commander Zakir Hossain, the director of Civil Aviation Authority at the airport, despite repeated attempts.
