INDIA ABROAD Feburary 10, 2017 18 INDIAN AMERICAN AFFAIRS
INDIAABROAD.COM
By George Joseph
araman
Radhakrishnan, 53,
who was charged with
making a threat at the
Grand Forks
International Airport in
North Dakota on January 28 told
India Abroad that the events
were due to a misunderstanding.
“It was just some miscommu-
nication between a harassed pas-
senger and an overstressed air-
line employee, when she refused
boarding due to overbooking and
informed me that I would not be
getting my checked in bag back
as it was already on the flight;
my comment and the subsequent
over reaction on part of the
employee has got me into this
nightmare,” he said
Radhakrishnan, an energy effi-
ciency specialist, who runs the
Devki Energy Consultancy Pvt
Ltd, in Vadodara, Gujarat, was
charged with terrorizing, a Class
C felony. He was later released
on bail. Jack (Jagdish)
Wadhawan, a leading realtor in
Grand Forks, came forward and
bailed him out, according to “The
Grand Forks Herald.”
The next court date is sched-
uled for March 6. Radhakrishnan was on a
week-long business trip to the
US, and was preparing to return
home when he checked in for a
flight from Grand Forks to
Minneapolis, Minnesota.
The incident happened at
about 5 am. An employee
informed the authorities that
Radhakrishnan told her that
there was a bomb in his bag,
which was already on the plane,
though he was not allowed to
board the plane as it was overbooked.
“It was just a bad day for an
upset passenger and a stressed
airport employee,”
Radhakrishnan told the
“Herald.”
He said he spent a week in
Roseau, Minnesota, working with
Polaris, a manufacturer of adven-
ture sports gear. He and his col-
leagues left Roseau at about mid-
night to reach Grand Forks for
their flight. He said he got his
ticket, checked his bag and
moved through the security
check.
At the boarding gate,
Radhakrishnan said he and other
passengers were informed Delta
flight 4803 operated by Sky West
Airlines was overbooked and that
they would have to drive to
Minneapolis to catch their con-
necting flight back to India.
Radhakrishnan said he was
offered a flight voucher by Delta,
and a rental car to drive to the
Minneapolis airport. When he
requested his bag, he was told it
would be waiting for him in
Minneapolis since it was already
on the plane.
He told the “Herald” he was
shocked that the bag had not
been removed because, in international travel, bags are taken off
flights if the passenger is not on
board. Radhakrishnan said he
was upset and told the ticketing
agent that it was a security violation.
“I said, 'What if there was a
bomb in the bag?”
Radhakrishnan said.
The employee said something
to another worker and
Radhakrishnan was waiting for
the travel voucher when the
police arrived and arrested him.
According to a court affidavit,
the employee told police that
Radhakrishnan said “there was a
bomb in the bag.”
“It was just bad communica-
tion,” he told the “Herald.” Still,
the bomb squad was called and
the airport shut down as it went
through the motions of searching
for explosives.
Radhakrishnan said he was
treated well by Grand Forks
Police, and with respect at the
Grand Forks County Correctional
Center.
When Wadhawan, who came
from India 24 years ago, saw the
news of the arrest he thought the
ticketing agent overreacted
because of Radhakrishnan’s ethnicity and accent.
He had never met
Radhakrishnan but felt obliged to
help him, attended his court
hearing, and subsequently bailed
him out.
On January 31, Radhakrishnan
wore one of Wadhawan's suits
and was beginning what could be
a long stay in his home, accord-
ing to the “Herald.” Wadhawan
said he will remain by
Radhakrishnan's side until his
name is cleared. P
‘It Was All Due to a Misunderstanding’
Man held in North Dakota claims airline staff misheard a hypothetical question as a threat
Two Plead Guilty to
People-Smuggling
— WASHINGTON
wo Indian men here
pleaded guilty before a
district court to charges
of illegally smuggling foreign
nationals to the US, the media
reported.
Nileshkumar Patel, 42, and
Harsad Mehta, 68, pleaded
guilty in the Newark court
Jan. 30 to one count each of
conspiracy to smuggle foreigners into the country for
personal advantage and financial gain, according to the
office of US Attorney Paul
Fishman, according to
NJ.com.
According to court records,
Patel and Mehta were first
charged in August 2015 under
a complaint filed by an agent
from Homeland Security
Investigations, which had
been investigating their smug-
gling operation as far back as
June 2013, according to the
complaint.
Prosecutors said the men
admitted to paying an undercover investigator to transport
two people they brought to
Thailand, in June 2014, on the
final leg of the journey to
Newark. Authorities said the
conspiracy, which according
to court papers, involved the
smuggling of four other
Indian nationals on two different occasions, continued
through October 2015 when
Patel and Mehta were arrested
after landing at Newark.
They were indicted by a
federal grand jury in March
2016. The conspiracy charge
carries a maximum sentence
of 10 years in prison, according to the prosecutors. Patel
and Mehta are to be sentenced
May 16.
– IANS
One Held for
Impersonating
Tax Official
— NEW YORK
n Indian-origin man
has been charged
with pretending to
be a US tax official and
forcing the victims to pay
money to him and his
accomplices, according to
officials.
Abhijeetsinh Jadeja, 29,
of Miami in Florida, made
phone calls to his alleged
victims making them
believe that they owed
money to the government
and made them send
money to bank accounts
and debit cards controlled
by him and his co-conspir-
ators, Southern Florida
federal prosecutor Wifredo
A. Ferrer said on Tuesday.
Jadeja was arrested
arrested along with an
alleged accomplice, Rachel
Jean Roragen, 41, on
Friday and they face 12
charges, including identity
theft, the prosecutor said.
It was not clear if their
arrest was related to the
crackdown in India last
October when at least nine
call centers were raided
and scores arrested on
charges of preying on
Americans by pretending
to be tax officials.
— IANS
A
T
—LONDON
ulitzer Prize winning
Indian-American writer
Siddhartha Mukherjee's lat-
est book “The Gene” and Paul
Kalanithi’s “When Breath
Becomes Air” has made it for the
longlist of this year’s Wellcome
Book Prize.
Weaving science, social history
and personal narrative,
Mukherjee has written a history
on genetics. The book animates
the quest to understand human
heredity and its surprising influence on our lives, personalities,
identities, fate and choices.
Kalanthi’s posthumously pub-
lished memoir is about his life
and his fight with lung cancer.
The longlist features seven
non-fiction and five fiction titles,
including "Mend the Living" by
Maylis de Kerangal, "The Golden
Age" by Joan London, "The Essex
Serpent" by Sarah Perry, "Omo
Deus" by Yuval Noah Harari,
"Cure" by Jo Marchant. In a state-
ment, Val McDermid, chair of the
Wellcome Book Prize 2017 judg-
ing panel, said, "The challenge of
judging the Wellcome Book Prize
is that we have all had to read
outside our own areas of expert-
ise. That makes demands both of
the judges and of the books. This
longlist is evidence of the
breadth, humanity and creativity
at work in the submissions for the
prize and we commend each of
these 12 books for your reading
pleasure.”
Wellcome Book Prize is an
annual award with 30,000
pounds prize money that recog-
nises new works of literature,
both fiction and non-fiction, that
have a central theme engaging
with some aspect of medicine,
health or illness. The shortlist for
the 2017 prize will be announced
on March 14, and the winner on
April 24.
— IANS
Siddhartha Mukherjee, Paul Kalanithi on Wellcome Book Prize Longlist
P
Both writers blended the scientific with the personal in their efforts
Siddhartha Mukherjee Paul Kalanithi
