KATHMANDU: The negligence seen at the Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) is slowly becoming a thing of the past, while entry passes that were being given to people will soon be stopped and “totally.”

“The entry passes are being given to only a few people now, while it will be totally stopped soon,” General Manager of TIA, Dinesh Prasad Shrestha, said today.

“Earlier, passes used to be given easily, but now we have become stricter due to security reasons.” he added.

“The number of Nepal Police (NP) personnel deployed at the airport has also been increased. Armed plainclothes police officers are all spread all over at Observation Posts (OP)”, TIA’s security in-charge Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIGP) Ramesh Shekhar Bajracharya said.

“We received information last Thursday that some terrorist group is planning to hijack an Indian plane; since then we are on high alert,” Bajracharya added.

The police have also been separating nationals from SAARC countries from passengers of other countries.

“The queue system has been totally changed; especially due to the threat to India, we are highly focusing on Indian nationals. While all passengers used to be in a same line earier, it is different now”, Shrestha said.

Security personnel have also started strictly checking boarding passes and passports of Indian citizens.

“We are equally alert at the domestic airport entrances; every system is stronger and highly alert now,” Bajracharya said, adding that Emergency Operation Centres have also been strongly activated. “Now we are putting the gates for a Proximity Scanning Card Reader. One X-Ray machine is on the way for TIA, while we have sent tenders for two more, along with 175 CCTV cameras, walk-through machines, hand held metal detectors and explosive detectors. We are adding more of all these for security reasons”, Shrestha said.

Further, security personnel have started checking people who work inside the aircraft, from engineers to cleaners, Shrestha added.

The DIGP claimed that passengers are a happy lot given the additional security.