New Delhi: After two days of high drama, the 12 detainees held by the Dutch Police from on board the Mumbai-bound North West Airlines, were released on Thursday.
Police had arrested 12 of the 149 passengers on flight 42 to Mumbai, which turned back to Amsterdam on Wednesday due to security concerns after the crew reported suspicious behaviour.
And though the Dutch Police made it clear that the passengers were not detained on terrorism charges, confusion, frustration and anger has gripped the relatives of the 12, all of whom reside in Mumbai's Memon colony.
They feel that they are targets of racial discrimination and that they are being hounded simply because they belong to the Muslim community.
Some readers on IBNLive wrote in to give their opinions on whether the matter was one of racial discrimination or not.
Says a reader Chintan Panchal, "One of the detainees had said that they had been held on the basis of their nationality. What is this if it is not discrimantion? It is a purely racist approach. We should stop taking American flights for when it is the question of their country and when a suspect is an Asian, these people are picked up without any hesitation."
Another reader, Prajesh Lakshman agrees and says that he has read all the articles related to the news item and followed the television stories and quite frankly feels that Indians simply cannot be branded terrorists. "I carry a cell phone and I am always carrying my laptop so does that make me a terrorist?"
However, most readers disagree that it is a case of racism.
A reader K G Krishnan writes, "I dont agree that Asians or Indians are being targeted. The focus of the Dutch authorities is to safeguard the passengers. How would the cabin crew have known that the 12 passengers were Muslims. Either one can say that all 149 passengers were Muslims and with that we come to the conclusion that the detained 12 were bound to be Muslims. Clearly the Dutch authorities were not being discriminatory."
He further goes on to say that if Asians were the target then all the passengers of the plane should have been detained for questioning. "It's obvious that the 12 people were detained on account of their suspicious behaviour."
Another reader KK agrees with K G Krishnan and says that the travellers were certainly not detained because they were Muslims. "It was just due to their misbehavior.Sometimes, we Indians do have the tendency to break the rules."
A reader who goes by the penname GKK says, "The Dutch officials have merely done their duty. They cannot take chances if they suspect somebody.There is no act of racism. The officials have every reson to detain passengers who misbehave."
"I do not really blame the Dutch authorities for taking such extreme steps as it is definitely better to err on the side of caution. I am really shocked to learn about the passengers' behaviour on board. I have seen a complete neglect and defiance of rules from Indians travelling abroad numerous times. It is this kind of behaviour which results in ill-treatment of all the Indian or Asian passengers," says a reader Shinu.
Q A Haider writes, "The whole drama behind the detention of the 12 Muslims family is nothing but the scare has been created by the few terror elements, who for their vested interest, plunge the whole Muslim community into the eyes of suspision. The Dutch authorities are not at fault for taking preventive measures to avoid any untoward incident for the safety of innocent people. It is not a matter of any religion but it is the duty all the citizens to keep for anything suspicious.If the whole world becames cautious and acts like a watchdog there is no question of any disruptive activity occuring in any part of the globe."
Opines Charles Phillips, "It was stupid to say that the incident was racism. What those 12 people did was sacrilage. In times like these, they should have shown some responsiblity by keeping those mobiles and laptops in luggage rather than in cabin luggage. And to think they were passing mobiles to each other. That's plain stupidity."
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