SRK detention: India summons US deputy chief of mission

India on Friday summoned the US deputy chief of mission a day after actor Shah Rukh Khan was detained at a New York airport immigration for two hours. The US embassy in New Delhi apologised, but India reacted with exasperation over repeated airport incidents. HT reports. SRK detained at New York airport

India on Friday summoned the US deputy chief of mission a day after actor Shah Rukh Khan was detained at a New York airport immigration for two hours.

The US embassy in New Delhi apologised, but India reacted with exasperation over repeated airport incidents that haven’t even spared a former president.

Thursday was the third time the actor had trouble at a US airport. External affairs minister SM Krishna said “detention and apology” had become a habit with the US, which “cannot continue”.

Khan, who arrived in a private jet with Nita Ambani, wife of RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani, at White Plains airport, was headed for a lecture at Yale University.

“... Whenever I start feeling arrogant about myself, I always take a trip to America,” he joked with students at the Yale event, which was delayed by two hours.

A US immigration department letter said SRK’s name was “flagged” in the system and the staff needed the approval of
“senior” authorities to clear him. Khan left the US on Friday.

Former president APJ Abdul Kalam was frisked twice at a New York airport — the second time they took his coat — in 2011. There was outrage when HT wrote about the incident that forced the US to apologise.

With agency inputs