High-end cellphones, laptops, wallets, smart watches, gold and diamond jewellery, and believe it or not — a two-month-old infant whose parents were too busy on their mobiles to care.
When a stunned CISF surveillance team at Mumbai airport found an iPad, a Macbook, gold and diamond jewellery and $6,000 in cash in two handbags inadvertently left behind by a Dubai-based businesswoman at Mumbai airport last year, it swivelled the spotlight on an unusual mound. The CISF is in charge of security at the airports.
Over the past two years, belongings worth over ₹100 crore have been left behind at the country’s 68 airports and most remained unclaimed. CISF officials say they have no idea how to reunite the luggage with their owners.
In 2014, the CISF launched a lost-and-found facility on its official website where it uploads details of the contact persons the passengers can approach to claim their lost belongings. The CISF uploads a list of all retrieved items along with the date and the name of the airport where they had been found.
“We have witnessed a steady rise in the number and value of belongings left behind by flyers over the past few years. Most of them don’t approach us to claim their lost luggage. Maybe they assume that they will never get back their lost items,” said a CISF official.
“Those who contact us get back their lost valuables,” he said.
According to the data compiled by CISF, flyers left behind items worth ₹58 crore at airports across the country in 2023 compared with ₹55 crore in 2022.
An analysis of the data shows that people most commonly left behind high-end cellphones, laptops, tablets, wallets, smart watches, gold and diamond jewellery, cameras, Bluetooth headphones, earpods, sunglasses, reading glasses and jackets.
Sources said flyers left behind luggage worth ₹10 crore at Delhi airport, ₹9 crore at Mumbai airport, ₹5 crore at Hyderabad airport and ₹2.5 crore at Calcutta airport in 2022.
A CISF official posted at Calcutta airport said around 800-900 items were recovered every month but very few people came back to claim their belongings.
All retrieved items are kept in the lost-and-found section of an airport for a month before being transferred to the central storage unit where they are kept for 90 days. The airport authorities auction the items if they remain unclaimed for over a year from the date of recovery.
A former CISF director-general blamed the forgetfulness of flyers on the stressful modern life.
“Flyers are always busy multi-tasking and at the same time worried about flights or hassled by security checks. The moment they enter the airport, some start working on laptops while others keep speaking on mobile phones. Perhaps there is a lack of focus that makes them forget things,” he said.
He recounted an incident where a couple left behind their two-month-old daughter at a cafeteria at Indira Gandhi International Airport lounge in 2013. The parents had stopped for coffee after flying in from Mumbai and walked away without their daughter. The cafeteria’s staff alerted the CISF when the infant began wailing.
“Both of them were busy talking on the phone and left the airport without their baby. They realised it only after reaching their home in Ghaziabad and rushed back. So far it has been the most bizarre incident of forgetfulness we have come across at the airports,” the former CISF DG said.