India and Shah Rukh Khan may have gone into a tizz about the star being detained at Newark airport on Friday night but American authorities maintain that it was a “routine formality,” and have accused us of blowing the event out of proportion.Shah Rukh Khan who was travelling to the US for a show at Atlantic City, New Jersey, was held back after the computer at the Customs red-flagged his name. Shah Rukh who usually travels with an entourage was travelling all by himself except for his assistant Subhash Jain. He was stopped and taken to a separate room called the Passport Control Secondary.
“We did not detain him for two hours [as reported], but one hour and six minutes to be precise,” said Elmer Camacho, public affairs liaison for the US Customs and Border Protection Force, the federal government group that has the right to detain people at immigration and Customs checkpoints. “The airline he was travelling in had misplaced his bags and the time it took them to locate his bags is included in this one hour six minutes.”
Shah Rukh has said he was allowed to make only one telephone call and he contacted his friend and Congress member of Parliament Rajiv Shukla. “He sounded very upset,” said Shukla. “He said he’d been detained because of his name. They asked him unnecessary questions and wanted him to name people he knew in the US.”
After Shukla called the appropriate people, it is believed that the government took up the matter with the US Ambassador in Delhi, Timothy J Roemer, before the star was allowed to go.
While Camacho refused to go into details of the questioning, citing passengers’ privacy rights, he said the actor had not been ill-treated in any way. “It was a normal process, part of our security routine. He was taken to the Passport Control Secondary, which in the afternoons when several flights land together can get very packed. From people being questioned to those who have migrated to the US, all are called into this room and people may have to await their turn till their name is called out.”
SRK himself termed the detaining as “uncalled for. They said I have a common name which is causing the delay… checked my bags… I felt angry and humiliated.”
India has since officially taken up the issue with the US Embassy in New Delhi, which said it was ascertaining details about the incident involving the “global icon” who was welcome to America. “He is a very welcome guest in the United States. Many Americans love his films,” said Roemer.
Rajiv Shukla who also heads the Indo-US Parliamentary Forum said there have been several incidents of racial profiling of Indians. “They have done it to late PV Narasimha Rao. They removed his dhoti, they have done it with NDA ministers like George Fernandes. In fact a number of film stars go abroad and suffer. Many simply do not talk about it ,” Shukla said. “They even did this with BJP MP Kirti Azad because of his surname. He was with a Parliamentary delegation to the US, yet he was not spared.”
I&B Minister Ambika Soni called for giving American visitors to India similar treatment while news agency IANS quoted SRK as saying, in response to a question whether he felt like meting out similar treatment to the Americans, “If they want I can frisk Angelina Jolie when she is here (in India).”
