India took this as a serious matter and asked for explanation and on the other hand we, great rival of India, always ready to be in competition with India espacially for sex and "freedom", why no competition of self respect and self identity with india on such issues?
MUMBAI: Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma has said that the government has taken strong notice of the incident involving the detention of 12 Indians abroad the Northwest Airlines, and that the Dutch government has expressed regret.
Sharma said, the government had asked for a detailed report on the incident and the Dutch Ambassador was summoned by the Ministry of External affairs in this regard.
“The Dutch government had expressed regret over the incident,” he said, adding the released passengers would reach India by Friday evening.
“It was due to the efforts of the Indian mission in The Hague that they were released within 30 hours. Otherwise under the Vienna convention they could have been in custody for upto 72 hours,” he added.
The 12 Indian men arrested and later released at Amsterdam following a security alert on a Northwest Airlines flight were treated "inhumanely", 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 Schiphol airport by F-16 fighters on Wednesday.
The behaviour of the men, all residents of Mumbai, shortly after the plane took off from Amsterdam had triggered the security alert. They did not put on their seat belts, changed seats and exchanged their mobile phones, arousing the suspicion of the crew and air marshals.
Slotboom, who arrived here last night along with 17 other Mumbai-bound passengers of the Northwest flight, however, said their arrest seemed part of an "offensive against Arabic people".
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. "They came to me and said, okay you come with us and you are not allowed to fly any more," he said.
Nitin Dalal, another passenger, said the arrested men "were not listening to the crew" and did things that made the crew "suspicious".
Another passenger Bharat Menon said, "The cabin crew was repeatedly asking the passengers to fasten their seat belts when one of the passengers received a call on his cell phone. The person, who was travelling in Economy Class along with his friends then spoke bit excitedly over the phone. The behaviour of these men was suspicious and they were handing the cell phones to each other."
The men were released after Dutch authorities found no evidence of their involvement in terrorist activities.
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