The Hindu : National : Arrested Indians treated "inhumanly"

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Saturday, Aug 26, 2006

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National

Arrested Indians treated "inhumanly"

Mumbai: The 12 Indians arrested following a security alert on a Northwest Airlines flight were treated "inhumanly", said a Dutch passenger who was on the plane.

"The way they got arrested inside the plane with everybody seeing how they got treated, I though it was inhuman... they were treated like dogs," said Antunius Slotboom, who was on Northwest flight No 42, with 149 passengers, that was escorted back to Amsterdam's Schipol airport by F-16 fighters on Wednesday.

The behaviour of the men, all residents of Mumbai, shortly after the plane took off from Amsterdam triggered the security alert. They did not put on seat belts, changed seats and exchanged their mobile phones.

Mr. Slotboom, who arrived here on Thursday night along with 17 other Mumbai-bound passengers of the Northwest flight, said the arrests seemed part of an "offensive against Arabic people."

"They did not hit them (arrested men) but they pushed them. They let them surely feel that they have no power, that the people who arrested them had all the power." Mr. Slotboom said he too was kicked off the plane after he remarked that the arrests were akin to what the Germans had done under Hitler during World War II. — PTI

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