A flight attendant kicked four men, including two Bangladeshi nationals, off a recent Toronto-New York flight for looking “too Muslim.”
The four – Faimul Alam and another flier, whose identity could not be confirmed, are Bangladeshi Muslims, one is an Arab Muslim and Shah Anand a Sikh from India – were all ordered off the flight. However, the other two had been identified by their initials as WH and MK.
According to a new $9m federal lawsuit, the appearance of the four Brooklyn men made the captain uneasy.
The four fliers from Brighton Beach were among six long-time pals who spent several days in Toronto this December, New York Daily News reported on January 18.
The report said the four had booked different flights home but they later decided to return on the same American Airlines flight which was scheduled to fly around 2pm.
After boarding, Shah Anand and Faimul switched seats with strangers so they could sit next to each other.
Later, a female flight attendant asked WH to get off the plane, said the lawsuit which was to be filed Monday in a Brooklyn Federal Court.
“I thought it was an evacuation or something, so I didn’t think nothing of it, but then she told me to take my bags, and when I went back into the plane I saw I was the only one standing,” WH, a fashion designer, told the Daily News in an exclusive interview.
The flight attendant then asked MK, who works as a construction worker, to leave.
Passengers surrounding Shah Anand and Faimul made racist comments and clutching their children “as if something was going to happen,” the suit charges.
“Then we were asked to get our belongings to get off the aircraft,” said Faimul Alam, a general contractor who runs his own construction company.
“They were told to ‘just be peaceful,’ making it seem like they were a threat, making other passengers uncomfortable and wanting to get off the flight,” said Tahanie Aboushi, who represents them.
When they got off the plane, a jittery agent from American Airlines told them they made the crew uncomfortable.
