India First Edition

University of Hyderabad Professor denied boarding flight to Johannesburg

Hyderabad, Agust 28: In a shocking incident, an eminent educationist, University of Hyderabad Professor Prof. A P Pathak was denied boarding flight to Johannesburg.
Prof. A P Pathak, Professor of Physics at University of Hyderabad is currently on an academic tour to international conferences and visits to USA, South Africa, Poland, Germany and Greece. Prof. Pathak was to chair a session and attend international committee meeting during 23rd International conference on Atomic Collisions in Solids (ICACS23) during 17th Aug to 22nd August to be held  in Hans Merensky Wildlife Estate, Kruger National Park in South Africa. On the basis of invitation letter from organizers, he was issued visa by the South African Consulate in Mumbai. On his way from USA to South Africa, the Lufthansa ticket was via Frankfurt and on 15th August, after checking his SA visa, Lufthansa at Dallas(USA) airport, checked him through to Johannesburg via Frankfurt and issued boarding passes for both the flights. However when he proceeded to the gate in Frankfurt to board the flight to Johannesburg on 16th August, he was stopped by a representative of South African Immigration and was denied boarding since his passport did not have another EMPTY blank page. Prof. Pathak showed him  the visa of South Africa issued in Mumbai and several pages in his passport where half pages are available for putting arrival / departure stamp , as is routinely done by all the countries,  latest example being USA last week.  The Lufthansa staff was also surprised  but they had to agree to the verdict of this officer and Prof. Pathak was off loaded. Prof. Pathak WAS NEVER TOLD AT ANY STAGE FROM THE TIME OF VISA ISSUANCE IN MUMBAI UPTO THAT MOMENT ON 16TH AUGUST AT FRANKFURT BOARDING GATE, ABOUT NECESSITY OF AN EMPTY PAGE EVEN AFTER HAVING A VISA issued by the South African Consulate.
Hence Prof. Pathak was on his own in Frankfurt for two days and then Lufthansa Frankfurt favoured by preponing his flight to Warsaw from 23rd August (the date when he was to come here to Warsaw on next part of his academic visit) to 18th August. In this process, Prof. Pathak suffered heavily academically, financially (since the whole week stay was covered in conference hotel in South Africa and he was spending for this period here in Frankfurt and Warsaw). Mental torture and humiliation was unprecedented. The Indian embassy officials in Warsaw are also surprised after seeing few blank half pages in Prof. Pathak’s passport and as per their advise, Prof. Pathak will be formally lodging a complaint with the Consular General of South African Embassy in New Delhi.