New Delhi: Amid reports
After hours of uncertainty over the plane’s status amid reports that many on board did not want to return to their home nations, an Airbus A340 bound for Nicaragua with 303 passengers—many, if not all, of whom are Indians—that had been grounded at a Paris airport due to connections to human trafficking has finally departed for Mumbai, according to a late Monday report from the French newspaper Le Monde.
“Some of the passengers were unhappy… because they wanted to continue their journey to Nicaragua as planned,” Liliana Bakayoko, legal counsel for Romania’s Legend Airlines, to whom the jet is registered, said earlier today to a French TV channel and radio network. “The situation is confusing.”
She had earlier in the day informed PTI and Le Monde that the required approvals had been secured and the jet was scheduled to take off from France at 10 a.m. local time (2:30 p.m. IST) and land late on Monday or early on Tuesday.
At that point, she added that only between 200 and 250 people had given their permission to return, and that number would include those who were not under police custody or who had not filed an asylum appeal with the French authorities.
The jet would not take off “before noon,” the authorities informed Le Monde shortly after that.
Twelve people have requested refuge; their current status is unknown. At least two passengers are among those who were not granted permission to go and are presumably in custody.
According to reports, some of the passengers spoke Tamil, and some spoke Hindi. The two could face charges of plotting to assist illegal foreigners in entering the nation, according to Le Monde.
According to reports, the two who were not allowed to depart were requested “to verify” whether or not they had a different role than the others in this journey.