Political India: Engaging America

From The Hindu

Vijay Kumar, the Indian filmmaker arrested in the United States and jailed for 20 days for carrying brass knuckles and “Jihadi literature” in his baggage, will be leaving the U.S. for India sometime on Monday, his lawyer has confirmed.

Speaking to The Hindu on Sunday evening, Mr. Kumar’s attorney Grant Scheiner said he had "learned that Vijay Kumar is scheduled to leave Houston within the next 24 hours”. He added that that was all the information he had been given at the time.

Mr. Scheiner added that Mr. Kumar "should arrive back in New Delhi in approximately one week's time" as he had two stops to make before returning to India. He also said there were "people watching the process, to make certain that Mr. Kumar leaves Houston safely".

In a case that exemplifies "heightened suspicion after 9/11", according to Mr. Scheiner, Mr. Kumar had to undergo an ordeal in a Texas jail, subsisting on only bread and water during his incarceration and having no certainty as to when he would be released.

Although Mr. Kumar’s arrest was a “mistake of law”, he was unable to obtain an earlier acquittal because he was “tied into a procedural knot by U.S. law”, Mr. Scheiner said. Particularly baffling — and an indicator of excessive caution in a post-9/11 era — was the fact that Mr. Kumar had his visa revoked by immigration authorities and then was jailed for not having a valid U.S. visa.

Following federal law

While there was no doubt that Mr. Kumar had contravened a Texas law forbidding persons from carrying brass knuckles at airports, he was simply following federal law, his attorney earlier said, which was anyway not consistent with the state law.

The irony in the other piece evidence against Mr. Kumar — the so-called “Jihadi literature” — was that Mr. Kumar was carrying the material for use during a lecture he was set to deliver to the Hindu Congress of America on interfaith discussion between Hindus and Muslims and the harms of terrorism.

When asked about the overzealous response of the U.S.’ homeland security system in Mr. Kumar’s case, Mr. Scheiner revealed that at Mr. Kumar’s immigration hearing, the government attorney actively “opposed [Mr. Kumar’s] voluntary departure, citing a threat to national security”.

If Mr. Kumar was not allowed to leave voluntarily and was instead deported, he would never have been able to obtain a U.S. visa again. Fortunately for him, this scenario was averted as the judge in the immigration case did not support the prosecutor’s claim that Mr. Kumar might have been carrying explosives.

According to Mr. Scheiner, the judge said that the investigation of Mr. Kumar’s luggage had clearly yielded a “false positive” and there was no evidence that Mr. Kumar had carried any explosives.

Mr. Scheiner said the fact that Mr. Kumar posed no terror threat was proved by the response of the judge in the criminal case against Mr. Kumar, who reduced his bail from $50,000 to $5,000 shortly after his arrest.

"He is grateful for all of the world-wide support and is looking forward to having his life return to normal," Mr. Scheiner said.

Labels: filmmaker Vijay Kumar, Homeland Security, Houston airport arrest, Jihadi literature