New Delhi: In August, the UK Police managed to thwart a mid-air terror plot planned by al-Qaeda. The plan was to blow up Trans-atlantic flights with the use of liquid bombs.
The plot was successfully thwarted but the trouble has just begun for many passengers of foreign origin in US and UK.
According to www.seattlepi.nwsource.com, a 32-year-old Tamil speaking man was detained and questioned at the Sea-Tac Airport in Seattle -- all for talking on his cell phone in Tamil.
The man was simply talking about a sporting rivalry at his alma mater in Tamil, interspersed with some English, but at least one person thought he was suspicious and called the police.
The Port of Seattle dispatched its police officers to investigate the case, making the man miss his flight on Saturday. He was preparing to board an American Airlines flight to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.
The airport spokesman later apologised saying that the incident was simply a misunderstanding and that there was a perfectly innocent explanation to everything.
The man, who later boarded another flight to Texas, reportedly assured authorities that he would refrain from speaking in a foreign language at airports in the future.
It is alarming that a language like Tamil, which is spoken widely in India, Sri Lanka and Singapore, is now being considered suspicious and innocent passengers are being harassed with increasing frequency.
In August this year, Mohammed Shafiq, a student from Hyderabad, was first detained as a suspect in the London terror plot for over four days, deported to Mumbai and then detained again when he landed at the Mumbai airport.
Comments
0 comment