Our name is Khan

Different Khans in the industry react to Shah Rukh's humiliation

'The wounds of humiliation never heal' -u00a0Irrfan Khan
"It happened to me twice. I was detained in New York and Los Angeles airport for a secondary interrogation. I was outraged. I was told to quietly come into a room for questioning and identification verification. I wasn't allowed to talk. When I asked why I was being treated this way I was told to keep quiet. I wasn't allowed to use my phone, even to inform the people who had come to receive me at the airport. "They said, 'No, you just sit down.' All because my name was Irrfan Khan. They did their job like computers, not caring how it affected the individual. You can't argue or rationalise. America is a country of superior sophisticated knowledge. Surely they can tell the difference between a terrorist and an innocent traveler.



"On a second occasion this time in New York, when I was detained I blew my top. I told this big African American guy, 'Please clear the confusion about my identity once and for all. Or don't provide me with a visa. I don't want to come back to the US.' The guy wanted to know if it was a threat. I was taken aback. Mira Nair had to intervene. She advised me to never counter-question them. I wasn't allowed to even get up from my chair. This is the free spirit of America.

'Our family has stopped going to the US' - Zayed Khan
"We Khans go through this kind of humiliation all the time. I've gone through it, Salman has gone through it. I'm glad people are talking about it because of Shah Rukh. There have been times when I've been with 17 people in a team on tour or for a shooting in the US. Out of these only one gets detained on the airport while the others get cleared in no time at all. Guess who invariably gets detained?



And some Caucasian bully who does these checkings by the book and who thinks all Khans are terrorists will tell you it's a random check. Tell me, how can there be random checks on five US airports one after another and in all of them, only yours truly gets detained for additionalu00a0checking? There's a big difference between being secure and being ignorant. American investigation agencies need to take a close look at the way they treat a certain community.

"Our family has stopped going to the US because of these 'random' checks. We don't go to the US for holidays, only for work and to meet family and close friends. Americans must realise they're losing goodwill. Humiliation of Indians anywhere is unacceptable."

'They googled my name for terrorist links' - Kabir Khan
"I was accompanying my wife in the US along with the Morani Brothers. It was a flight from LA to Washington just 15 days after 9/11. So the paranoia was not totally unjustified. We were waiting for the flight to take off, talking to each other in Hindi, when some passengers complained that we were talking in a 'strange' language.

Within no time, two burly FBI agents came on board and took us to the front of the plane. When they got to know my name, they questioned me for more than two hours, googled my name for terrorist links and allowed me to fly. They asked me if I had been to Pakistan. I said no. If I had told them I had been to Afganistan, they'd have freaked out."