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| 12 Indian passengers arrive home safe | | |
Mumbai, Aug 26: Relieved at their release after being detained in Amsterdam for alleged suspicious behaviour in a US airliner, the 12 Indian passengers who arrived here on Saturday morning thanked the government for its "active intervention" in the matter.
Immediately after the Northwest Airlines` Flight `NW042` arrived from Amsterdam at Chhatrapati Shivaji International Terminal here carrying these passengers, one of them said a "misunderstanding" on part of the airline led to a two-day ordeal for them but that they were treated well by the Dutch authorities.
"It was a misunderstanding on the part of the airline. We were treated well and want to forget it as a bad experience," Mohammad Iqbal Batliwala told reporters at the city airport.
He refused to comment further saying he was tired.
Another passenger Shakeel Chotani said, "The misunderstanding has been sorted out."
Speaking on behalf of the 12 passengers, one of the relatives Mansoor Umer Daruvesh thanked the Government of India for its intervention.
"It is due to their (government) active intervention that all of our relatives have returned safely from Amsterdam in such a short while," he said.
Recalling the incident, a passenger said, "We were wearing seat belts and were tired after a long journey, that is the 22-hour transit time. We were lying down and were not exchanging mobiles. We exchanged seats only to sleep."
Another person termed the incident as a "near death experience," saying, "We were scared because we were in a foreign country and there was nobody to take care of us. We were kept separately in small cells. But none was physically assaulted or beaten. The authorities interrogated us one by one."
Batliwala said all those detained were businessmen and did not want their interests to get affected.
"We were shifting seats so they suspected us. We were then handcuffed and taken for interrogation. They asked us where we were going? we said that we travel frequently due to business. We had gone to Trinidad for a trade fair. We have nothing against Northwest airlines, nor are we going to charge the Dutch government. Our laptops, telephones etc are still under Dutch custody. We just hope that our business is not affected," he said.
The passengers took more than an hour to come out of the terminal building after landing of the aircraft. There was commotion outside the terminal building when the passengers were encircled by the waiting media to get their reactions.
Their flight, which landed at 2.15 am, was delayed by four hours.
Anxious relatives of the passengers had started arriving at the airport since last evening.
Abdul Aziz, father-in-law of garment exporter Mohammad Salman Yousuf, said that his son-in-law had struck "good business deals at a trade fair in Port-of-Spain and he was detained while coming back to India via Amsterdam."
He said that Salman and his friends were frequent travellers.
Faizan, son of Navi Mumbai-based businessman Farooq Hashim, said his three sisters and mother were happy that his father was returning home safely.
The 12 Indians were detained on Wednesday after the northwest airlines flight with 149 passengers on board was escorted back by two F-16 fighters to Amsterdam`s Schipol airport.
They were released yesterday after Dutch prosecutors found no evidence of a terrorist threat.
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