[Resolved]  Indigo Flight — Undue harassment in name of security

We were travelling from Patna to Kolkata in an Indigo flight on 30th Oct,2009(6 E-342) and our seat nos. were 28A & 28B. We had our infant son with us who was carrying a small tennis ball with him. The security for handbaggage did not allow it. I asked them to scan it separately in case of any doubt. But they refused it stating it to be a prohibited item in handbaggage.When I asked them to put it in the baggage, they refused to either give me some time to put it in the baggage or to even put it themselves in the baggage. I was left with only two options- either leave the kid's ball for their personal use or miss the flight. I left the ball though my son was playing with it and there was no question of any doubt regarding it turning to be any kind of threat to security.None of the crew of the concerned flight proved of any help either.
I would like to request you to stop undue harrassment of passengers in name
of security. If the goods are not in the prohibited list, there is no point to force the passengers to leave the goods for the personal use of airport staff. In my case there was no confusion regarding any security threat and it was just due to malafied intentions.If public cooperates for security check, airport staff should be equally responsible.
I would like to ask two simple questions to the airport authority and the Indigo crew :

1. Did the security staff send my kid's ball to the bomb detection squad or just kept it for the personal use?

2.Why couldn't they load it as a separate baggage in the flight if they could not give me enough time to put it in my loaded baggage if they did not have any malafied intention? I may have had a chance of collecting it at the Kolkata airport.
It is not a question of the price of the tennis ball but the question arises of the mental agony suffered by us and especially my child.Kindly punish people who are using security check to fill their own pocket and prevent such future untoward incident. Kindly also inform me of the action taken against this complain and measures taken to compensate me for the uninvited mental stress..

Pragati Rai
Asst. Audit Officer
AG( R,W & LBA), West Bengal
Ph- [protected]