As American Trans Air flight 204 approached New York, two fighter jets were dispatched to escort it to La Guardia and then three Indian men and one woman were taken off the plane by armed officers, separated, questioned, and detained for five hours. They were Samyuktha Verma, the biggest movie star in India, considered "the Julia Roberts of Malayalam-language films"; Indian pop singer Biju Narayanan; Jairaj Kattanellur, a comedian and satirist; and a fourth Indian man who didn't know the first three but was taken off the plane for suspicion of FWI (Flying While Indian). The group had just performed in Dallas and were on their way to New York for a performance at Queens College, but a passenger told a flight attendant they were acting "suspiciously" when they kept changing seats in an effort to get their first glimpse of the skyscrapers of New York. They were finally released after threatening to sing an entire Indian musical.
August 22, 2002 6:08 AM
