Pakistan cricket legend Wasim Akram has gone through a harrowing experience at Manchester Airport, about which he tweeted on Tuesday, July 23. According to the former pace bowler, the security at the Airport questioned him in a very rude manner and also forced him to take out the insulin he was carrying with himself from the special pouch in which the medicine is kept.
The former Pakistan captain, who is a diabetic and therefore requires regular dosages of insulin, also claimed that he has never faced this kind of ordeal at any airport before . He wrote on his Twitter page: "Very disheartened at Manchester airport today, I travel around the world with my insulin but never have I been made to feel embarrassed. I felt very humiliated as I was rudely questioned & ordered publicly to take my insulin out of its travel cold-case & dumped in to a plastic bag."
A response to this tweet from the official Twitter handle of Manchester Airport was also issued which read: "Hi Wasim, thanks for bringing this to our attention. Please can you direct message us so we can look into this for you?"
Around three hours after the original message, Akram put out another one in which he stated that "I do not believe I should have been treated differently from anyone else. I just believe there should be a standard of care when dealing with all people. I understand there are proper safety precautions but that doesn't mean people should be humiliated whilst undergoing them."
It will be interesting to see how the airport staff explain this episode. There have been other instances in the past when Pakistani citizens have had to go through extra scrutiny at airports for security reasons. The Manchester Airport may issue an apology, not just because of Akram's status as one of cricket's all-time greats, but also for the fact that a person suffering from diabetes was made to pull out his medicines. Or, they may have a perfectly justifiable reason for taking extra precaution. Only time will tell what is it.
