Khurshid plays down Azam Khan’s detention at US airport

Almaty: Downplaying the detention of UP minister Azam Khan at a US airport, external affairs minister Salman Khurshid on Friday said the strict immigration procedures were one of the requirements of travelling to that country.

At the same time, Khurshid said that India has always urged for greater sensitivity and courtesy in such matters and if there has been any departure from the normal course, the government would take it up for every citizen and not only for someone who has “special stature”.

“I am not sure about the details of what has happened,” Khurshid said when reached for comment on the Azam Khan episode. “There are processes and procedures at immigration counters in the US that we have all been through. It is based largely not on subjective choice but it is based on what the computers throw up by way of names, background and random checks.”

Asked about reports that a section of the Samajwadi Party was blaming Khurshid for the lapse, the minister said: “That is interesting. I could not have been at the airport because I was not in the US.

“He [Azam Khan] was part of an important delegation visiting Harvard and led by the chief minister of north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh and therefore it would have been of concern to all of us.

“I think all of us who travel to the US have gone through this. Sometimes it seems irksome, but frankly if you travel to the US, which has reasons to be concerned about procedures in order to address their concerns of security, we take that as one of the requirements of travelling to the US.”

Meanwhile, external affairs ministry spokesman Syed Akbaruddin said India has asked its embassy in Washington to take up Khan’s detention with the US authorities.

Khan, who was accompanying state chief minister Akhilesh Yadav for the presentation of a study on the Kumbh Mela pilgrimage, was detained for about 10 minutes for ‘further questioning’ at Boston Logan International Airport on Wednesday, according to Indian officials.

Once the visitors were cleared for entry by immigration, a woman officer of the US Customs and Border Protection wing of the Homeland Security took Khan to an adjacent room, sources said.

Khan is reported to have reacted angrily in the immigration area, saying he was detained because he was a Muslim and sought an apology from the officer, who merely said she was doing her duty. As arguments became heated, officials from the Indian consulate in New York intervened and Khan was escorted out of the airport.

In a statement issued by his personal assistant Muktinath Jha late on Thursday in the Uttar Pradesh capital of Lucknow, the minister alleged that on the pretext of frisking him homeland security officials humiliated him, and restated that he was targeted because he is a Muslim.

Although Khan, who is the urban development and parliamentary affairs minister, intended to deliver his lecture at the Harvard Business School (HBS) on organising the Maha Kumbh Mela as planned, he would not participate in the lunch and dinner functions and other events, the statement added.

“The minister will officially register his protest at the HBS, where he is to deliver a lecture on the successful management of Kumbh and crowd management,” his assistant said.

“This is simply unacceptable,” he told his secretary in a telephone interview.

The minister said that he would decide his future course of action after returning to India while adding that he regretted his decision to go to the US.

In Washington, Indian embassy spokesman M. Sridharan said the mission has “taken up the issue with the State Department officially and we have conveyed our serious concern”.

“We have asked them to intervene and take appropriate measures to avoid recurrence in the future,” he said.

The Khan case is the latest instance of Indian VIPs being detained at US airports. Last year, Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan was detained for more than two hours by immigration officials at a New York airport.

Former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam was twice subjected to frisking at New York’s JFK Airport by US security officials. India’s then ambassador to the US Meera Shanker was patted down by a security agent in Mississippi in December 2010.

At the State Department, when asked to comment on the incident, spokesman Patrick Ventrell said he was “not aware of the specifics of this case” as the Department of Homeland Security has jurisdiction over airport movements inside the US.

But “I do want to underscore that we have a very important bilateral relationship with India and a very robust and thorough diplomatic exchange with our partners”, he said. “We very much value our partnership with the Government of India.”