This is to bring to the notice of authorities concerned about the attitudes of immigration officers at Kingdom’s airports. My wife and daughter came back from Lahore, Pakistan, to Dammam on Jan. 21 morning at about 1:30 a.m. At the immigration counter, the officer on duty stopped my wife and did not stamp her re-entry visa on the ground that her exit and re-entry visa did not show any stamp when she exited Dammam four months back.
My wife told the officer, if that was the case, it was not her fault but was the fault of the officer on duty who forgot to stamp it. He did not agree and told my wife who was on a wheel chair to wait till 8 a.m. in the morning when the new team would come and decide what to do next ignoring her condition being on a wheel chair for no fault of her own. Sensing the trouble my daughter called me as I was waiting outside the airport to receive them.
I somehow managed to go inside the airport and met a young officer who was very kind and took me with him inside and talked to the officer at the immigration counter about this matter. The officer still insisted and did not agree to let my wife go out. Finally, they checked the PIA record that confirmed that my wife exited on Sept. 18, 2012 and then agreed to let her go after keeping her waiting for more than two hours.
Had I not been there the officer would have kept them waiting till 8 a.m. in the morning. I will not hesitate to say that such sort of negligence on the part of immigration officers to forget to stamp badly reflects on the efficiency of the department. — Abdul Hai Malik, Dammam
