New Delhi: Veiled women will be asked to reveal their identities at UK airports as part of a government plan to tighten security, says a report published in a newspaper.
The Scotland on Sunday in an exclusive report quoted UK’s Home Office “insiders” as saying that immigration officials will be allowed to ask passengers to lift their veils. The paper said officials would get the permission after reports that a police killer may have escaped the UK dressed as a Muslim woman.
Mustaf Jama, wanted for the murder of police officer, reportedly flew from Heathrow to Somalia wearing wearing a niqab, which covers the entire face except for a narrow slit of the eyes.
Under the plan, immigration officers would now be legally entitled to ask any female passenger to lift the veil to verify her identity against the passport photograph.
The newspaper said unions are opposed to plan, as they believe it would put pressure on workers, particularly female officers, who would be the only ones allowed to look under veils.
It quoted a senior Home Office source as saying that British Home Secretary John Reid would enforce these legal rights before considering any more significant changes to the existing law that gave immigration officers wide ranging rights to verify the women’s identity against their passport photographs.
"Immigration officers can check beneath veils and they do this at every port of entry, every day of the week. It is done sensitively and in private. Where they don't do it, I suspect it is more often to do with a lack of suspicion than lax procedures or overwork. But we recognise that this sort of thing should be the rule, not the exception," the source was quoted as saying.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair also welcomed the change, saying airline passengers must remove any headdress that covered the face.
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