Meera Shankar Frisked at US Airport

India’s ambassador Meera Shankar frisked at US airport

India’s ambassador to US has been pulled from an airport security line and frisked by a security agent in Mississippi, it has emerged.

The hands-on search took place last week even after Meera Shankar’s diplomatic status was revealed.

Some reports said Meera Shankar, who was on her way from a conference, was singled out because she was wearing a sari.

The Indian embassy in Washington has strongly protested about the incident.

The search took place on 4 December at the Jackson-Evers International Airport, news agency Press Trust of India quoted an Indian Embassy official as saying.

Meera Shankar was about to board a flight to Baltimore after attending an event at Mississippi State University.

She was taken to a VIP waiting room despite staff being told that she was an ambassador, he said.

She was later pulled from a security line and patted down by a female Transportation Security Administration agent.

“This is unacceptable to India and we are going to take it up with the US government and I hope things could be resolved so that such unpleasant incidents do not recur,” External Affairs Minister SM Krishna told reporters in Delhi.
‘Stupid incident’

The incident has also embarrassed the university officials who had invited Meera Shankar to give a speech.

Meera Shankar Frisked at US Airport

“It was a wonderful programme, maybe the best we’ve had, (but) this stupid incident ruined the whole thing,” Associated Press quoted Janos Radvanyi, chair of the university’s international studies department as saying.

“She said, ‘I will never come back here’. We are sending her a letter of apology,” he said.

Last year, America’s Continental Airlines apologised to former Indian president APJ Abdul Kalam for frisking him before he boarded a flight to the US.

Members of India’s parliament were outraged after it emerged that Mr Kalam had been frisked and made to remove his shoes at Delhi airport in April.

Protocol exempts former presidents and other dignitaries from such searches.

India to protest Meera Shankar’s ‘pat down’ search in US

NEW DELHI: India will strongly take up the issue of Indian Ambassador to the US Meera Shankar being put through a “pat down” search at a US airport, External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna said here on Thursday and described the incident as “unacceptable”.

“Let me be frank, this is unacceptable to India. We are going to take it up with the government of US that such unpleasant incidents do not recur,” Krishna told reporters outside parliament. He said that there were “certain well-established conventions, well-established practices as to how members of diplomatic corps are treated in a given country”.

“I am rather surprised by the way the Indian ambassador to the US has been treated. This has happened for a second time in three months,” he said.

The minister pointed out that India had a “very cordial relationship” with the US and hoped that the relationship was taken forward. On Dec 4, Meera Shankar was subjected to a rigorous public “pat-down” at the Jackson-Ever International airport after a visit as a guest of the Mississippi State University.

According to The Jackson Clarion-Ledger, Meera Shankar was singled out from a group of 30 passengers and pulled aside. Witnesses told the paper that she was chosen as she was wearing a sari.

Apparently, Transportation Security Administration (TSA) guidelines do not have any exceptions for foreign dignitaries, but officers have the discretion to pick and choose, depending on whether they set off metal detectors, the newspaper said. The Indian ambassador did not set off any alarms. At the same time, TSA allows additional screenings when passengers are wearing “bulky” clothing.

The Clarion-Ledger added that Meera Shankar had asked for a private security check, but she was led to clear box for the “pat down” in public view. “The way they pat them down, it was so humiliating,” said Tan Tsai, a research associate at MSU’s International Security Studies Center who witnessed the screening. “Anybody who passed by could see it.”

The office of Mississippi governor Haley Barbour said that they were looking into the incident. “At this time, we’re trying to find out exactly what happened, all of the details,” said the governor’s spokesperson, Dan Turner.

The state Lieutenant Governor, Phil Bryant, who had met with Shankar during her visit to the state, said that they regretted the outrageous way she was treated. “Although I understand we need proper security measures to protect the passengers in US airports, I regret the outrageous way Indian Ambassador Shankar was treated by the TSA while visiting Jackson,” he said in an e-mail to Clarion-Ledger.

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