Four Air India employees at Ahmedabad airport under scanner

Four Air India (AI) employees at the city airport are under police scanner in connection with the Rs10 lakh jewellery theft that had taken place early this year.

Cops have subjected these employees to lie detection tests and are awaiting their reports.

Sardarnagar police inspector VS Sarvaiya said that Amul Bhattt, Faruk Sindhi, Vipul Patel and Pravin Chauhan of AI are suspected to have been involved in the theft that had taken place on February 24 this year. Of them, Amul Bhatt is security in-charge for AI at Sardar Vallabhabhai Patel International Airport (SVPIA), while Faruk Sindhi is luggage loader for the national career at the same airport. The other two suspects are also posted at SVPIA, said Sarvaiya.

The police inspector further said that Bhatt is responsible for scanning of passengers' luggage and Sindhi is a luggage loader. So, only these two could have known that the bag of complainant Anju Aradhya, 30, a resident of Bangalore, contained diamond jewellery.

The polygraphs were done at Forensic Science Laboratory in Gandhinagar, the PI further said. Giving detail of the case, Sardarnagar police said that Aradhya had visited Ahmedabad in February to buy jewellery for her marriage. On February 24, she boarded a Mumbai-bound flight from SVPIA after buying diamond jewellery worth Rs10 lakh.

However, after landing in Mumbai and checking-in a hotel there that night, she found the ornaments missing from her bag. She approached Mumbai police but they refused to register her complaint.

Following this, Aradhya came to Ahmedabad again on March 7 and lodged a theft complaint with Sardarnagar police. She had stated in her complaint that she had submitted her bag after locking it. However, when she checked it in her hotel room, she found an AI red sticker which is for those bags submitted open at the check-in counters.

PI Sarvaiya said that the theft might have been commited either at SVPIA, Mumbai airport or at the Mumbai hotel where Aradhya had put up. Further investigation is on in the case.