Jet Airways has confirmed that Amin Asmin Tariq, who was among the 22 persons arrested by the British police and Scotland Yard for plotting to blow up US airliners, was an employee of the organisation and has been suspended from the job with immediate effect.
"Yes, Tariq was an employee of the organisation," said A K Shivanandan, director (public relations) of Jet Airways in New Delhi in an conversation with rediff.com on Saturday.
But he went on to explain that Tariq was a British national who was hired by the organisation to work at the Heathrow Airport in March 2006. "He was working in another organisation and was transferred to Jet Airways. All employees working on Heathrow and other airports are cleared by the British police," he said.
Jet Airways is carrying out its internal probe to find out how Tariq was employed. The US government, had a few months ago, asked for a complete dossier on Jet Airways because of its alleged involvement with Dawood Ibrahim who has been declared a terrorist by the US government.
However, Indian Intelligence agencies had given Jet Airways a clean chit on the eve of Jet-Sahara merger, which was called off at eleventh hour by Naresh Goel because he felt that Sahara was asking for too much money for its ageing fleet.
