What should have been a routine airport drop-off turned into an eight-hour ordeal for Indian entrepreneur Shruti Chaturvedi, who narates her ordeal saying that she was racially profiled and wrongly detained by US authorities at Anchorage Airport, Alaska.
Chaturvedi, founder of the India Action Project, says the incident unfolded after airport officials discovered a power bank in her friend’s carry-on bag—a device explicitly allowed by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in cabin baggage.
Power Bank Sparks Detention
Chaturvedi had gone there to drop her friend at the airport ahead of her own flight when she received a distressing text: her friend’s passport had been seized, and she was being detained. Moments later, her phone was switched off.
Appalled, Chaturvedi went back to the airport to check on her friend. Instead, she was detained, interrogated, and kept in solitary confinement, purportedly without reason.
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…
— Shruti Chaturvedi 🇮🇳 (@adhicutting) April 8, 2025
Alleged Fabrication of Evidence
According to Chaturvedi, officials marked the power bank as suspicious and went on to stage a photo to make it look hidden.
“They took the power bank, taped it inside the cabin bag, and took a picture,” she explained. “This was then reportedly shown to the FBI as evidence that the device had been concealed deliberately.”
Shruti Chaturvedi pointed out the irony, stating that TSA guidelines clearly allow power banks in carry-on luggage.
Eight Hours in Custody
Sharing her ordeal with Hindustan Times on whatsapp chat, Chaturvedi added that she was separated from her friends, questioned for hours, and denied basic rights including allowing her to go to a restroom. She was also not allowed to call her parents to inform about her whereabouts.
Further narating her harrowing experience at US airport, she added that she was physically checked by a male officer on camera, stripped off warm wear, and was kept in chilled room.
“The FBI was eventually called in, but after hours of interrogation and searching our phones and photos, they found nothing,” she said. “They couldn’t hold us any longer—because we had done nothing wrong.”
It had everything to do with skin color, says Swati
After eight hours of harassment, the officials released her as they found nothing wrong. Immediatedly after her release, Chaturvedi said a TSA agent made an unsolicited comment: “Just in case you think this had anything to do with race, it didn’t.”
To her, that statement only confirmed her suspicions. “Of course, it had everything to do with our skin color,” she said.
Reacting to her post, many echoed her concerns, pointing to the incident as yet another example of racial profiling faced by people of color in the United States.
Racism in US
Recently Bollywood actor Neil Nitin Mukesh spoke about his own shocking experience at a New York airport, where he was detained and questioned. The actor, revealed that the US immigration officers refused to believe he was Indian, despite Mukesh holding an Indian passport.
The racist anti Indian rhetoric has been on a rapid rise in the US for the past few years.
Last year a US policeman laughed as he drove over and killed a 26 year old Indian student Jaahanvi Kadula, as he called her a person of “limited value”.
In 2024 there were reports of a growing number of Indians killed or found dead in mysterious circumstances. Amarnath Ghosh, Sameer Kamath, Vivek Saini are some names among them.
The anti India rhetoric has also gained tremendous steam online where social media platforms have been rife with anti India hate unchecked by the platforms, normalizing such incidents for Indians.
While the Indian community is one of the most peaceful and prosperous communities in the US, racism and hate against them seems to be growing and it is being backed by many powerful people in authority. Such airport incidents are also on the rise where Indians are being specifically targeted and harassed, as even successful entrepreneurs like Shruti Chaturvedi have to face the effects of such racial profiling.
