LONDON: A British Sikh travelling to Pakistan for Guru Nanak ’s 550th birth anniversary celebrations was detained and questioned for almost six hours by counter-terrorism police at Heathrow on Sunday and prevented from boarding his flight.

The 38-year-old, a British citizen of Indian-origin, who lives in Coventry, told Raids Organisation UK that he was left humiliated and petrified when he was surrounded by nine counter-terrorism officers after passing through security.

“When he questioned why he was being stopped, the officers became aggressive and some of them reached for their police batons,” Raids said in a Facebook post describing the incident. They allegedly asked the man for his passport and mobile phone before escorting him to a special room for interrogation. This took place in full view of other passengers, some of whom laughed and recorded videos, leaving him distraught.

In the interrogation room, police searched the man’s luggage and found a travel kettle, pot noodles and some protein bars. Pointing at these, they asked, “which training camp he would be attending in the Taliban mountain areas and whether he was he planning to attack India,” Raids said.

When he said he was visiting the Kartarpur corridor, they asked him whether he was “planning on smuggling himself into India across the Kartarpur corridor to carry out a terrorist attack.”

The man was also asked which Indian political party he supported, what he thought of Indian foreign policy and the Indian Army , whether he preferred India or Pakistan and whether he preferred Captain Amarinder Singh or Sukhbir Singh Badal. Despite having a heart problem, his requests for a bottle of water, food and to take his medication were all refused, Raids claimed.

A spokesperson for West Midlands Police told TOI : “A 38-year-old man from Coventry was stopped at London Heathrow Airport on 3 November as he prepared to board a flight to Pakistan. He was stopped by officers from the Metropolitan Police, on behalf of West Midlands Counter Terrorism Unit, under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000. It allows officers to stop, search, question and detain someone travelling through an airport to determine if they are involved in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism. The man was not arrested and enquiries continue.”

Activists from Raids have been central figures in an ongoing campaign to force West Midlands Police to leave gurdwaras when trying to set up recruitment stalls in response to raids the police carried out targeting Sikh households in September 2018.

