Boston, July 30, 2004
Ralph Ranalli
Globe Staff
A Boston College student leader who wears a turban and full beard in
accord with his Sikh religion says he was detained and interrogated
for seven hours Saturday night by Secret Service agents for doing nothing
more than taking photographs of the campus.
Sundeep Sahni, a senior with a double major in computer science and
finance, said the Secret Service agents, who were staying on campus
during the Democratic National Convention, suggested that he was a criminal,
searched him and his car for weapons and bombs, and even had him sign
a release form during the ordeal that gave them access to his psychiatric
records.
Sahni, 21, said he believes he was singled out because of his appearance.
At one point during the searches, he said, an agent told him: "I
don't want you pulling an Uzi from your turban."
"It was the most humiliating experience of my life," Sahni
said.
Boston College officials said they are giving Sahni their full support
and are attempting to arrange a meeting between the student and the
Secret Service.
"We want to arrange a conversation, which we hope will result
in an apology," said Boston College spokesman Jack Dunn.
A Secret Service spokesman, however, said there will be no such meeting
or apology.
"During the course of the DNC, law enforcement is in a heightened
state of awareness in response to suspicious activity," Secret
Service spokesman Charles Bopp said. "He [Sahni] was interviewed,
and our security concerns were addressed. The case is closed. There
are no charges; there is no further investigation."
Bopp declined to address any of Sahni's specific allegations yesterday,
except to say that Secret Service records show that the incident lasted
five hours, rather than seven. He declined even to confirm that Secret
Service agents were staying on the Boston College campus.
College officials, however, did confirm the agents' presence on the
campus and said that they questioned Sahni and his friends out of concern
that photographs were being taken of the buildings where the agents
were housed.
A leader in four different campus organizations, Sahni said that Saturday
night began uneventfully, when he and fellow Boston College student
Ali Shawaf hosted a mutual friend and former exchange student, Siddharth
Khotkar, for a visit.
Khotkar wanted to take some pictures of his former campus, but the
three were soon stopped by college police, who said someone had reported
them as suspicious after they attempted to take pictures of St. Mary's
Chapel.
Growing up as a foreigner in autocratic Kuwait and living in the United
States following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Sahni said he is used
to being stopped at airports and occasionally by police because of his
appearance.
The three friends expected to be sent on their way after having their
IDs checked, but Secret Service agents arrived and took over the questioning,
Sahni and Shawaf said. The interviews, conducted first outside and then
at the Boston College police station, lasted until after 1:30 a.m. BC
police were not involved in the questioning, Dunn said.
At one point, Shawaf said, an agent asked him whether he knew that
his friend Sahni had an "obsession" with Social Security numbers
and that he had a criminal record. Sahni, however, said that he has
never been arrested and that the agent might have been referring to
a time recently when he left his Social Security card on a university-owned
scanner, after scanning it into his computer as a backup in case it
was lost.
Both Sahni and Shawaf said it is clear to them that Sahni was singled
out because of his appearance.
For one thing, they said, only Sahni, whose family is originally from
India, was searched and questioned while Shawaf, a Muslim from Saudi
Arabia who dresses and wears his hair in Western style, was not. And
if the pictures were the issue, they said, why would the agents focus
on Sahni when the camera belonged to his friend Khotkar, an Australian
of Indian Hindu descent?
Sarah Wunsch, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts,
said yesterday that she believes that the Secret Service did not have
legal grounds to interrogate Sahni and that he has a valid civil rights
claim.
"The DNC being here does not mean that they [the Secret Service]
can do anything they want," she said.
Sahni, meanwhile, said that he would resist his impulse to leave school
and return to Kuwait, because he owes it to other Sikhs to stay and
push for at least an apology.
"BC teaches people how to be leaders, and I have told people in
the past that they should stand up for their rights," he said.
"It's my turn to try to make sure this is never going to happen
again."