350 cases of baggage theft reported from Indian airports since 2010

New Delhi: Around 350 cases of baggage theft were reported from international and domestic airports in the country since 2010, government said on Thursday. Minister of State for Civil Aviation K C Venugopal, in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha, said the incidents of baggage theft were reported from 19 airports in the country. In 2010, there were 105 such cases of which, maximum 35 was from Mumbai airport, followed by Delhi with 26, Hyderabad 14, Kolkata seven, six Cochin, five Jaipur, three each from Chennai and Calicut, two each from Coimbatore and Bagdogra and one from Raipur. [caption id=“attachment_728003” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  AFP[/caption] In 2011, of the 126 such cases, Kolkata had maximum with 32, followed by Delhi with 31, Mumbai 28, Cochin nine, Hyderabad eight, Calicut seven, Jaipur four, two each in Chennai and Port Blair and one each at Aizwal, Ahmedabad and Thiruvananthapuram. The number of such cases came down in 2012 to 86 all over India. Of these, a maximum of 24 was reported from Delhi, 22 from Mumbai, 11 Cochin, Hyderabad nine, six each in Jaipur and Kolkata, three in Thiruvananthapuram, two each in Agartala and Raipur and one in Indore. Till March this year, 32 theft cases have already been reported, with Delhi having the maximum of 11, Mumbai nine, Cochin five, Hyderabad two and one each from Bhuj, Kolkata and Madurai, the Minister said. In reply to a separate question, Mr Venugopal said compared to 2011, number of air passengers had declined by 3.04 per cent in 2012. He attributed grounding of Kingfisher Airline as the prime reason for the decline in the number of passengers. “The number of passenger carried by domestic airlines during 2012 was 58.08 million as against 60.70 million during 2011, thereby registering a decline in growth by 3.04 per cent,” he said. “The prime reason for this decline is that Kingfisher was also operating a sizable number of flights carrying considerable number of passengers thereby contributing to the growth of traffic,” he said. PTI