India seeks report on film-maker’s arrest

The government on Wednesday said it will seek a report from its U.S. mission into the arrest of an Indian documentary film-maker at the Houston airport for allegedly carrying “jihadi literature”, brass knuckles and $10,000 in cash.

The 40-year-old Vijay Kumar was arrested at the George Bush Intercontinental airport on Friday after “acting suspicious,” when screeners thought they saw a possible handgun in a scan of his baggage.

“We will seek a report into the incident,” Overseas Indian Affairs Minister Vayalar Ravi said here.

Mr. Kumar was in Houston to lecture a Hindu organisation about Islamic fundamentalism and the books packed in his checked luggage were educational tools, authorities and his lawyer told the court.

Attorneys for Mr. Kumar said that he has surrendered his passport.

The books and radical material was found in stacks, packed in Mr. Kumar’s carry-on luggage, according to the police report.

U.S. officers also claimed to have found a pair of brass-knuckles in the luggage he had checked with his airline to be carried in the cargo hold of the aircraft.