US Envoy apologizes to Shah Rukh Khan for detention

NEW DELHI: The US administration apologized on Friday, following the detention of Shah Rukh Khan at the Los Angeles airport, assuring such incidents will not be repeated.

The assurance came from US envoy to India Richard Verma. The Ambassador also tweeted that Khan has huge followers in the US. Earlier, US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Nisha Biswal had said sorry after Khan had expressed his disappointment on Twitter.

The 50-year-old actor, whose namesake is on a US no-fly list of 80,000, was detained for questioning and tweeted “Every damn time!” Khan, one of the most successful stars in the Hindi film industry, has previously been held back at airports in New York and New Jersey.

American officials say that during immigration checks, what pops up is a name without any other detail to help draw a distinction. In April 2012, Khan was held back for over two hours at the airport in New York. In 2009 too, he was stopped at Newark airport as his name came up on a computer alert list.

He had joked later at Yale, “Whenever I start feeling too arrogant about myself, I take a trip to America.” After arriving two hours late to Yale university, he said in his address to the students: “We were detained at the airport as always. For one and a half hours. It was nice. It always happens when I come to America.”