Travel agents threaten to halt air ticket sales

Travel agents today threatened to halt sales of air tickets protesting against the arrest of their friend Shyam Raj Thapaliya, promoter of Thamel-based Osho World Travel Nepal.

Police had arrested him last week for selling air tickets to four girls bound to Iraq three weeks back — a banned job destination for Nepalis.

“We will not issue air tickets to police, army and civil servants if his case is not withdrawn,” said proprietor of Travel Day Society Dipendra KC Dhakal. Police have irrationally arrested him.

It is not the duty of travel agents to stop illegal migration to Iraq. The police should arrest the outsourcing agent who facilitated the process, he added.

Travel agents fear that the police are planning to frame charges of girl trafficking against Thapaliya.

Police had arrested the unnamed girls from Tribhuwan International Airport suspecting them to be illegal migrants. The government had banned Iraq eight years back when a radical Islamist militant group — Army of Ansar al-Sunna — killed 12 Nepalis on August 31, 2004.

Iraq has not been opened for jobs to Nepalis, so Nepalis cannot visit or join jobs in the country, said an officer at the Department of Foreign Employment.

However, the officer refused to comment on the incident saying he did not know all the facts.

Though the government has not lifted the ban on Iraq, every day 10-12 Nepalis have been leaving the country to join jobs in the destination.

They are using Indian routes or are being smuggled by human traffickers through ‘setting’ at the Tribhuwan International Airport.

source: the himalayan times,2 may 2013