Opinion - Letters to the Editor   

Mid-air witch-hunt

The article "Are Asians facing a witch-hunt in mid-air?" (Aug. 25) rightly criticises the West. Racial profiling is bad enough. What is worse is that it is being done by fellow passengers and flight crew.

Even a high school child knows that a terrorist will not act or dress like one. 9/11 is a case in point. That passengers are singled out and taken off the planes even before they are found guilty is shameful. By embarrassing people belonging to a particular community, the Europeans and Americans are sowing the seeds of hatred.

Kiran Annapragada,
Atlanta, Georgia

After a couple of terrorist attacks and threats, the West seems to have gone into a tizzy. The way the Europeans and Americans see a terrorist in every South Asian — who does not look like them or speak their language — reminds one of McCarthy's `Reds under the Bed' hysteria of the Cold War years.

B.N. Gururaj,
Bangalore

Extreme vigilantism and the state's intervention in nearly all aspects of life are increasingly being justified on the grounds of securing the liberty and welfare of its citizens. How delighted the exponents of positive liberty must be!

Siddarth K. Raj,
New Delhi

The recent incident in which 12 passengers of South Asian origin were arrested by the Dutch authorities from a United States' Northwest Airlines plane bound for Mumbai is shocking.

That the authorities acted on mere suspicion expressed by some fellow passengers shows their racist attitude in dealing with Asians and Arabs. It looks like it is going to be increasingly difficult for Indians, especially Muslims, to travel to the U.S. and the West.

Suhail Sabir,
Aligarh, U.P.

The high drama enacted on the Northwest flight is symptomatic of the troubled times we are in. It is easy to find fault with the Dutch authorities, blaming them for a knee-jerk reaction. But they did what any responsible state would have done — showed zero tolerance to anything that appeared to be a terrorist threat.

Vijay Mohan Swaraj,
Chennai

There can be no argument against preventive and precautionary actions against terrorist designs. But innocent travellers cannot be detained for hours on suspicion and complaints by fellow passengers.

Airlines must adopt stringent security measures before passengers board the aircraft. Passengers should be inconvenienced with delays or rerouting of flights only in extreme cases when adequate evidence of possible terrorist activity exists.

M.V. Devraj,
Bangalore

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Mid-air witch-hunt

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