Hi,
I had a personal emergency and had to leave Doha for Chennai on 3rd September 2008.I was travelling economy for the first time from Doha and went through immigtation then on to the security check. That was where I had the surprise of my lifetime.
I had decided not to check in my bag, it was only 7 kg and I had a laptop in hand. When I shoved it into the xray machine, it turned out that I had some commodity that was not permitted. So I was told that they will open the bag , which they did.
Two security officers, one of them an Arabic woman and another a man, opened by bag and searched through it. They found one pair of scissors which they said they will confiscate...I was fine with that. Other than that I had a pain spray (Relispray) which was put into a transparent ziploc bag ( of permitted size) and they confiscated that as well....
I had forgotten to leave my screw driver toolkit home , so it was in my bag...they said it was not allowed...I requested that it could be checked in, since it was an expensive one...they refused and I said , I’ll check in the whole bag if you want...they said I cannot go from there, unless I cancel my trip...no way to check in that...a friendly staff from Qatar airways who said that they can check in the bag, was asked to ’shut up’ unless he wants to be arrested....during that melee...
I had noticed that my iPod was missing from my bag...and lo and behold...I had my surprise of my lifetime.....I could see the white headphones hanging out from the security officer’s pocket....I said I want it back...he first said it was ’confiscated’ for which I asked him to tell me why an iPod would not be allowed....I was told that I could be taken to the police station for arguing...then I took out my camera and wanted to take a picture of him with the iPod so that I could take him along and go to the Police station....
At that point he claimed that the iPod was his....I told him to look at the back of the iPod and asked him to read out what was writted there ...’Manager 2006 - Deloitte & Touche LLP’ ...that was definitely mine.....at that point he threw the iPod on the floor and asked me to pick it up ( broke the plastic case of the iPod) ...and while I was doing so...I could notice that both the man and the woman were spitting at me....they said get out of here immediately unless you want to be arrested...I know that the place is monitored by CCTV...even then this is the treatment you get from Qatari security folks....a big salute to that country and their legal system.