Indians stranded in Paris for 28 hours,allege racism

“No one would have been treated the way we were treated,” she said adding “we were made to sleep on the floor”.

Refuting the allegations,the airlines said in a statement here that “passengers were taken care of by the Air France ground staff who spoke fluent English and passengers were also provided with food and water.”

It said the pilot while en route from Paris to Mumbai noticed some vibrations from the cargo hold of the Airbus A-330,carrying 169 passengers and 12 crew members. The plane returned to Paris where it was checked but “no abnormalities were found”.

The passengers said that their flight was delayed forcing them to spend in Paris close to 28 hours from Sunday night. During this time about 50 Indian passengers were kept in a small room for several hours at the airport while other passengers were given hotel accommodation,they said.

However,the airlines explained that they had put up passengers with valid transit visas at nearby hotels for the night and had made all attempts to obtain clearance for other passengers which was “time consuming”.

Another passenger complained that they were only given sandwiches and water to sustain themselves and that too in a limited quantity forcing them to keep on asking for more.

The flight from Paris to Mumbai left from Charles de Gaulle airport on Sunday but later returned to the airport after the pilots noticed some vibrations from the cargo hold,airlines officials said.

A subsequent check revealed there was nothing wrong with the aircraft,they said.

“When we said we would complain,one of the officials looked at me,up and down,and then said that we could complain if we wanted to. It is very shameful that we were treated like this,” a woman passenger said.

“The pilot had initially aborted take off at Paris airport saying it was because of some ‘switch’ trouble. After a two-hour wait,the plane took off only to return after four hours of flying. The captain announced that the aircraft was returning to Paris due to operational reasons,” Sengupta said.

“The officials there even had threatened that we would be handed over to the police if we did not stop protesting,” another passenger said.

54 Indian passengers were later “huddled out” of the airport on a “group visa”,which the authorities could have provided much earlier,and taken to a hotel,she said.