RAWALPINDI: A Saudi military officer was assaulted by Airport Security Force (ASF) personnel when he argued with an official over the stopping of his son during the security check-in of passengers for a Saudi Arabian Airline flight on Thursday.

The Saudi officer was reported to have been seriously injured.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik and Defence Secretary Nargis Sethi sought reports about the incident from the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).

According to security sources, Group Captain Al Ashri Shukri Saeed of Saudi Air Force, who was attending a professional course at the National Defence University, reached the airport along with his son and a nephew at around 5pm for the 6.15pm flight SV-723 to Riyadh.

His nephew had cleared the security check, while his son bypassed the walk-though gate. When the boy was spotted heading towards the lounge, a security official called him to return and follow the security check-in procedure.

Mr Saeed was annoyed when he saw his son being touched and having been called back by the security staff. He asked the security officer why he had touched the boy.

Argument between security official Idris Ahmed and Mr Seed, the sources said, turned into a brawl. When ASF’s Abdul Rehman saw the man quarrelling with his colleague and beating him, he came to help his colleague and got involved in the fight. ASF officer Abid Ali and Inspector Zafar Iqbal and Mohammad Saleem rushed to the place and pounced upon the passenger, kicked and punched him and hit him with pistol butts, the sources added.

Senior officials of the ASF and airport management immediately intervened and settled the matter, at least for the time being.

Police took Mr Saeed to the Benazir Bhutto Hospital. “Multiple X-rays of the victim were taken and a medico-legal report was prepared, although the radiologist’s final report is awaited,” the hospital’s Medical Superintendent Dr Asif Qadir said.

Soon after Mr Saeed had been taken to the BBH, senior officials of the Saudi embassy arrived there.

“Doctors tried to clean an injury he had suffered on his left eyebrow, but a Saudi diplomat stopped them and said he would be taken to Islamabad for treatment,” Dr Qadir said.

He was taken to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences in the federal capital and admitted to a VVIP room.