U.S. marshals and immigration agents busted down the door of Nadir Khan, a legal Pakistani resident, and arrested him on heroin trafficking charges, even though their warrant read "Nadar Kahn" (with an "a" in his first name). Their warrant also showed a date of birth that was four years off, and their identifying description said he was supposed to have a mole on his forehead. (He doesn't.) For seven months he languished in a Houston prison, losing $21,000 in salary as a truck driver, losing his credit rating, losing his car, and causing his son to drop out of high school in Pakistan because he could no longer afford his books. One reason he stayed in jail so long is that one of the marshals told a judge that there were "a lot of Arabic tapes" in Khan's bedroom. Actually Khan doesn't speak Arabic. The tapes were in Urdu, and, as Gaiutra Bahadur of the Philadelphia Inquirer pointed out, they were soundtracks from Bollywood musicals. And you know how the feds hate musicals.
June 5, 2003 5:27 AM
