The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) on Monday responded to a social media post by The Wire’s founding editor, Siddharth Varadarajan, who alleged differential treatment at an airport due to a minor spelling error on a flight ticket.
“Dear Mr Siddharth, Warm greetings from @CISFHQrs. Kindly share the flight details, PNR, contact number, and approximate time of the incident via DM so that we can look into the matter,” CISF wrote on X.
Earlier in the day, Varadarajan had posted: “A travel agent issues tickets for a Delhi-Kochi flight to two journalists, but misspells their names by a single letter. The vigilant CISF guards manning the airport gates spotted the error, but let one of them enter the airport anyway while the other was told the mismatch in spelling meant they would not be allowed entry into the airport."
"One's name was Siddharth Varadarajan, the other Ziya Us Salam, one was Hindu, one Muslim, both had beards but one was fuller than the other's. Guess who got into the airport and who didn't. I began my speech (link below, in comments) at Ziya's launch in Cochin with this true story,” he added.
Varadarajan and journalist-author Ziya Us Salam were travelling to attend the June 14 launch of the Malayalam edition of Salam’s book Being Muslim in Hindu India in Kochi.