After the request of Nepal government, Indian airport authorities are strictly scrutinise travelling documents of Nepalese passengers in order to put a check on trafficking of girls and women to Gulf countries. No Nepalese passenger could fly to Sharjah from Lal Bahadur Shastri International Airport Benaras in the city in the last 10.

"Not a single passenger from Nepal could produce required documents for travel in the last 10 days, hence they were not allowed to board the flights. Earlier, five-25 passengers, mostly girls and women, used to fly for Sharjah everyday. There is a daily flight to Sharjah from Varanasi airport,"

According to Air India manager at Varanasi Atif Idris ,"Earlier, we had no written order to prevent any Nepalese passenger from boarding the Sharjah flight. But after we received guidelines from the Nepal government, we are not allowing passengers to go without valid documents.”

According to The Times of India, Idris said passengers travelling on employment visa need to show Nepal government approval with seal, while the passengers on tourist visa are required to show returning tickets, hotel bookings and currency with them.

"But alarmingly, in the last 10 days all Nepalese passengers failed to fulfill this criteria," he said.

"Varanasi has been a transit point of human trafficking due to the misuse of its cosmopolitan character by the traffickers," said