An Indian man from northern Uttar Pradesh state was wrongly detained at Abu Dhabi airport, UAE, after officials erroneously found his face matching with one of the wanted criminals through face recognition software.
After being questioned extensively for hours over a mistaken identity case on October 11, he was deported to India in the early hours of Sunday.
After landing at Indira Gandhi International Airport, he was greeted by well-wishers and media personnel, to whom he narrated his ordeal.
Praveen Kumar, who works as a contractor for a cement company in Noida, and his wife Usha were on a week-long leisure trip to Switzerland and had a connecting flight from Abu Dhabi.
He stated that the company he works for had arranged the Switzerland trip for him, which was organised by a travelling agency.
The agency had booked a connecting flight from Abu Dhabi as the direct flight to Switzerland was not available.
But after landing at the airport, the immigration authorities seized the couple’s passports and visas and then took them to a separate room for questioning.
“They kept me overnight and forced me to accept that I was someone else and put me in a holding cell in the morning. Then, they took me to a different city, where I was detained and questioned for hours,” Kumar told ANI news agency.
After news of the couple’s detention came to the fore, their family members tweeted to India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and other senior officials of the ministry seeking help.
Gautam Buddh Nagar District Magistrate SL Yathiraj told ANI that the family had submitted an application to get him released, following which the Ministry of External Affairs, the Indian Embassy and the state's Home Ministry were apprised.
16/10/22 Wion
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