By IANS
Bangalore : A battery of journalists, photographers and TV news crews waited at the Bangalore airport for most of Sunday – not for a VVIP or a rock star but to catch the first glimpse of Muhammad Haneef, returning home after his 25-day ordeal in Australia.
Outdoor broadcasting (OB) vans for live telecast with reporters and camerapersons began trickling in at the airport as well as at the residence of Haneef's father-in-law in BTM Layout area to keep track of his arrival.
Haneef boarded the flight at Brisbane Saturday evening after he was cleared of involvement in last month's failed terror plot in Britain.
Most news channels had to summon extra OB vans from Chennai as they wanted to deploy one each at the airport, the BTM Layout residence and at the Richards town house where the 27-year-old doctor's mother, sister and brother live.
"At BTM Layout it is like a meeting of OB van technicians from Chennai," a reporter of a news channel quipped.
The first of the OB vans reached the airport and BTM Layout at around 7 a.m. Others followed soon, since it would be otherwise difficult to get a vantage spot as the road is pretty narrow – though it is called 15th Main Road, the reporter said.
Two to four teams of camerapersons were on duty since morning and the day would end well past midnight as Haneef's flight was scheduled to land at 9.30 p.m.
"It has been a hectic three weeks as one has to work keeping in mind three time zones – the Australian, the Indian and the British," a journalist with a TV channel said.
"This has meant starting the day at 5 a.m. Indian time and ending at midnight."
On top of that, a channel reporter sent others racing to the airport Sunday morning saying Haneef was arriving between 9.30 a.m. and 11.30 a.m.
It was Haneef's wife Firdous Arshiya who came to the help of the hapless mediapersons waiting at the airport.
On learning that many had been waiting at the airport for hours already, she managed to reach one of them on the phone and clarified her husband would reach Bangalore only in the night.
Scribes here were disappointed to hear that Haneef had already given an interview to Channel Nine of Australia.
"He might not have much to say on arrival," rued a TV journalist.
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