More than 24 hours after they were taken off a Northwest Airlines flight which returned to Amsterdam after take-off, 12 Indians, all from Mumbai, were set free by Dutch authorities today after prosecutors said they found no evidence of explosives or a terror threat. Dutch public radio said all 12 had been cleared of suspicion of terrorist intentions after questioning. Some of the passengers of the flight, who were stranded in Amsterdam, landed in Mumbai late tonight. Though the airline has not yet officially confirmed the numbers, a passenger said that 18 of those stranded had arrived from Amsterdam via Singapore.Prosecutors in Amsterdam said the men had aroused suspicion of the crew because they had a large number of cell phones and other equipment, and refused to follow instructions. “A thorough investigation of the cell phones in the plane found that the phones were not manipulated and no explosives were found on board the plane,” said a statement from the prosecutor’s office in Haarlem, which has jurisdiction over Schiphol airport.“From the statements of the suspects and the witnesses, no evidence could be brought forward that these men were about to commit an act of violence,” the statement said. Earlier in the day, Dutch Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner said that the plane’s return to Amsterdam did not seem to have been prompted by a terrorist threat. “There is no indication of a terrorist threat on the plane that returned to Schiphol,” a spokesperson for the Dutch counter-terrorism office quoted the minister as saying. In New Delhi, Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma said that the men were Mumbai-born and the Indian mission in Amsterdam had been given consular access to them. “We have got the list of the 12 people. They were born in Mumbai,” Sharma said.Those detained were identified as Sohail Abdul Aziz Nizami, Ayub Qadir, Sajid Qadir, Yusuf Haji Ghaffar Memon, Nur Mohammed Batliwala, Shakeel Usman Chotani, Ayub Khan, Ehsan Farooqi, Ghulam Mustafa, Mohammed Yusuf and Mohammed Imran.Details of the anxious and frantic moments on flight 42 have also emerged. Passengers aboard the plane said air marshals intervened after the 12 men began fidgeting with mobile phones and plastic bags. “I saw the air marshals run and I knew something was amiss,” said a passenger.Others commented that those arrested were from Asia and aged between 25 and 35. “Some had beards, others were unshaven, one was wearing a robe. Some had baseball caps,” a passenger told the paper. Passenger Sarat Menon told De Telegraaf: “Shortly before the flight I spoke to them in a coffee bar. I didn’t detect anything suspicious.”
