The Ministry of Interior Affairs on Saturday said the cases of three police officials who illegally diverted a plane in Bamiyan Airport last week, will be sent to the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) for further investigation on Sunday.
The three officials are the police chief of PD1 in Bamiyan, Bamiyan MP Abdul Rahman Shaheedani’s son, and a security official from Bamiyan police.
A number of MPs and analysts urged government to arrest Abdul Rahman Shaheedani, an MP from Bamiyan, who is “the main suspect of the case”.
“The law has not been ruled on powerful figures and leaders even from the far pasts in Afghanistan. This is the reason which motivated him (Shaheedani) to add his name to the list of powerful figures. This act by him could have taken dozens of lives; therefore, law must be ruled on him,” said Sayed Ekram, an MP.
“Our demand from the parliament and from our President (Ashraf Ghani) is to punish those who are behind the incident in order to inform others about the rule of law on everyone,” said Hekmatullah Shahbaz, a university lecturer.
This comes after two Bamiyan MPs, including Shaheedani, reportedly missed their flight in Kabul last week on Tuesday. On approach at the Bamiyan airport, the Kam Air plane, the MPs were booked on, was prevented from landing and forced to return to Kabul.
According to reports, relatives of the MPs converged on the runway blocking the plane, which was carrying 30 passengers, from landing.
Kam Air officials have said the relatives of the MPs also threw stones on the runway when the plane tried to land.
Once back in the capital, the plane refueled and again took off for Bamiyan – this time with the two MPs on board.
Footage obtained by TOLOnews of the return flight to Bamiyan shows that MP Abdul Rahman Shaheedani, who was on board with another MP Ghulam Husain Naseri, argued that he made the move to “break the taboo” and to make people realize his “position” and his “place”.
“It should not be like this anymore - that I am not known (by the people). Today I broke the taboo,” Shaheedani told passengers in the video.
Kam Air officials have said that its staff no longer wants to fly in to Bamiyan.
However, the governor of Bamiyan, Tahir Zaheer, has assured Kam Air that they need not worry as no threats will be posed against any future flights.