Hardeep Puri at a meeting in New York in early December. (Jay Mandal/On Assignment)

Washington, Dec. 13: The US government’s Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has initiated a wide-ranging investigation into the treatment of diplomats at American airports in the wake of Indian complaints about breach of rules.

The investigation has been swift and was launched on Saturday in spite of the weekend after the US deputy chief of mission in New Delhi, Donald Lu, was summoned for a protest by Jawed Ashraf, the joint secretary in South Block dealing with Washington.

According to diplomats of several countries here contacted by this correspondent today, the wide-ranging TSA review not only deals with Indian protests, but also takes a comprehensive look at the way all those covered by the Vienna Convention are treated at American airports.

The Vienna Convention provides a total framework governing the establishment, maintenance and termination of diplomatic relations between independent sovereign states.

India’s latest skirmish with the US was the subject of a lively discussion at a lunch hosted by external affairs minister S.M. Krishna for ambassadors in New Delhi today, according to the grapevine in Chanakyapuri, where most embassies in the capital are located.

A new, political, dimension to the controversy was added today when Sukhbir Singh Badal, president of the Shiromani Akali Dal, wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh alleging that Sikh religious sensitivities of a senior Indian diplomat in New York were offended by the US airport screeners.

Contrary to extensive reporting in the media, enquiries by The Telegraph revealed that Hardeep Puri, India’s permanent representative to the UN in New York, was not “patted down” at a Texas airport a few weeks ago. Nor did an airport screener remove his Sikh turban, contrary to reports today.

A detailed account of this incident sent to New Delhi from India’s consul general in Houston, Sanjiv Arora, reveals that unlike Meera Shankar, the Indian Ambassador in Washington, Puri stood his ground at Austin airport and was, therefore, cleared with an apology after the screener checked with his TSA superiors on the phone.

Shankar, on the other hand, was humiliated at an airport in Jackson, Mississippi, nine days ago and was searched in violation of the TSA’s own procedures which required her to be subject to the invasive “pat down”, if at all, in private. Mississippi, like Texas, falls in the jurisdiction of the consulate in Houston.

This newspaper’s investigations into the twin incidents reveal the following.

Puri, accompanied by another diplomat from the Indian mission to the UN, arrived at Austin’s airport and passed through a security-scanning machine like every other passenger. A screener then singled out Puri for a secondary search, ostensibly because he was a Sikh wearing the traditional turban.

Puri, a regular air traveller within the US who had thoroughly read the TSA rules and was keen to avoid a diplomatic incident involving his host country, politely told the screener that since the scanning machine had not triggered an alarm, it was beyond the authority of the airport’s screeners to demand a pat down.

The screener realised that this passenger knew the rules and did not pursue his demand for a pat down. But he insisted on removing Puri’s turban and physically examining it for prohibited items.

Again, Puri told the screener that under the TSA’s own rules no one was allowed to touch his turban in deference to religious sensitivities, but the screener continued to insist on removing the turban. Puri then told the screener that he obviously did not know his own department’s rules and told him to check with his superiors.

The screener was also told by Puri that under the TSA rules, if a turban had to be removed, it had to be removed by the passenger himself and the screener could only check it with a cotton swab with chemicals holding the swab with a tweezer or a tong. Under no circumstances is a screener allowed to touch the religious symbol with his own bare hands.

Faced with no option, the screener agreed to contact his superiors, but warned that Puri may miss his flight as it would take time. Puri said he would rather miss his flight than forgo his rights as a passenger.

After about 15 to 20 minutes, the screener came back and apologised to Puri, conceding that he was, indeed, right. The two Indian diplomats were then on their way.

At no point did the permanent representative flaunt his diplomatic status because diplomats are not exempt in the US from airport screening.

Puri merely relied on the TSA guidelines which went into effect on November 1 that expressly set out the procedures at airports for dealing with passengers of Sikh faith. The specific guidelines are said to have been insisted on by the White House to mollify American Sikhs who were hurt after Barack Obama abruptly dropped Amritsar from his Indian itinerary.

Arbitrary turban checks at airports have been a sore point among American Sikhs for a very long time. But the White House managed to have clear rules included in this regard from November 1. Puri knew this and was, therefore, spared the humiliation unlike in the case of the ambassador in Washington.

Enquiries reveal that in the case of Shankar, several things went wrong in Mississippi. First, she did not have adequate back-up on the ground unlike Puri who was accompanied by another diplomat, giving him moral support by his mere presence in the face of any aggression by airport screeners.

Second, Shankar clearly did not know the TSA rules and could not or did not reject a screener’s unreasonable demands by quoting rules on airport security back to him.

Instead, she took out her diplomatic papers and told the security personnel that she was an ambassador. Diplomats in the US are not exempt from screening at airports unless specific exemptions are organised in advance for specific flights through the state department.

This correspondent’s experience at the US airport has been that whenever he produced an ID issued by the US Congress or the state department, he was invariably sent for secondary screening. Screeners here resent any passenger flaunting a special status.

Rarely has this correspondent been sent for secondary screening when he used his US driving licence as ID like every other ordinary passenger.

Shankar had the right to insist on being patted down in private in an enclosure, but she did not insist on this. As a result she was embarrassed by invasive patting by hand in full view of her hosts and other passengers, according to reports in the Mississippi media.

Officials here declined to speculate how long the TSA review would take but its speedy initiation was evidence that the Obama administration has been unsettled by the reaction in New Delhi to the Mississippi and Texas airport incidents.