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| August 24, 2006 | Thursday | Rajab 28, 1427 |
‘Victimised because of appearance’
LONDON, Aug 23: One of two Muslim students, pulled off a British charter flight at gunpoint because other passengers feared they were terrorists, said on Wednesday they were victimised because of their appearance.
Khurram Zeb, 22, told the Daily Mirror newspaper he felt sorry for those people on board the Monarch Airline’s flight who thought they were terrorists but did not blame anyone for what happened.
“Just because we are Muslim does not mean we are suicide bombers,” he was quoted as saying.
Zeb and his friend Sohail Ashraf were escorted from the plane at Malaga airport in southern Spain after other passengers voiced concern to cabin crew about the appearance of the men who were presumed to be speaking Arabic.
The Urdu-speaking pair — both students at Manchester University, in northwest England — were questioned by police for several hours before being put up in a hotel and allowed to fly back the following day.
Ashraf, also 22, appeared to laugh off the incident, telling the newspaper: “We might be Asian, but we are two ordinary lads who wanted a bit of fun. Just because we are Muslim does not mean we are suicide bombers.”
In the hotel after questioning, he recalled: “We sat on our beds and Khurram said, ‘You don’t look like a terrorist’. I said, ‘Neither do you’. Then we both collapsed with laughter.”—AFP
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