'Stripped of warm wear, checked by male officer': Indian woman's eight-hour US Airport ordeal

She explained that she requested the FBI officer to call her parents to inform them about what was happening as she was alone in a different country, but they did not do so.

Indian entrepreneur Shruti Chaturvedi has shared her experience of being detained for eight hours at a US airport by the police and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) because they deemed a power bank in her luggage to be 'suspicious' 

Chaturvedi, founder of the PR firm Chaipani, says she endured an eight-hour detention, physical frisking by a male officer under surveillance cameras, and complete denial of basic rights.

Airport authorities across the world don't allow power banks in check-in baggage as there is a significant risk that the lithium battery can catch fire at high altitudes. 

In a report by HT, Chaturvedi claimed that the incident occurred at Anchorage airport, when authorities discovered a power bank in her friend's carry-on baggage. 

Chaturvedi, who had just dropped her friend off at the airport, received a distressing text. Her friend informed Chaturvedi that her passport had been seized and she was being taken into detention. Chaturvedi said, “That was the last message I received from her." 

Soon after reaching the airport and questioning the authorities about her friend's whereabouts, Chaturvedi got detained herself. 

While the authorities did find a power bank in her friend's bag , they said it was suspicious and even fabricated evidence she claimed. 

According to the report, she alleged, “They found a power bank in my friend's bag and handbag. And not only did they just flag it, they actually took the power bank and one of the airport security personnel, they used duct tape and they stuck it inside the cabin bag.”

She added, “And they took a picture just to fabricate evidence, which they gave to the FBI saying that ‘she was carrying a power bank, hiding the power bank with the duct tape.’”

Chaturvedi in a now-viral post on X wrote, “Imagine being detained by Police and FBI for 8 hours, being questioned the most ridiculous things, physically checked by a male officer on camera, stripped off warm wear, mobile phone, wallet, kept in chilled room, not allowed to use a restroom, or make a single phone call, made to miss your flight – all because the airport security found your powerbank in handbag ‘suspicious.’”

Detailing what unfolded after she was taken into custody, Chaturvedi said the bomb squad and the FBI were called. 

She explained that she requested the FBI officer to call her parents to inform them what was happening as she was alone in a different country, but they did not do so. 

After 8 hours the FBI could no longer hold her. “They were questioning me and my friends separately in different rooms and we were isolated. And probably they must have matched our stories, checked our photographs in our phone gallery and things like that, and found that there was nothing suspicious.”

“And they really couldn't hold us after a while because we did nothing.” 

Chaturvedi believes there was a racist angle to their detention. When she was allowed to leave the detention room, a TSA agent apologised and brought up the race issue. 

She said, “He was like, ‘Oh, just in case you think it's anything to do with your race, it doesn't,’” said the Indian woman. “He tried to tell us that it had nothing to do with the colour of our skin. But of course, it had everything to do with the colour of our skin.”