Boy aged 7 is stopped at 3 airports as a terror suspect

Here we go again. A boy aged seven was stopped three times at airports because security staff thought he might be a terrorist. Bewildered Javaid Iqbal and his family missed their filght back to Britain from America because his name matched that of a suspect. The boy, being treated to a holiday in Florida for passing his school exams, said: “I’m only young. I’ve done nothing against the law. It’s crazy to think I would be a terrorist.” His parents are now considering changing his name to prevent the same thing happening in the future. Their nightmare holiday journey began when they were delayed for three hours at Manchester airport on their way to America. They were then held up for an hour and a half at Orlando airport in Florida. At Philadelphia airport on their way home, staff cancelled their tickets, causing them to miss their flight. Javaid’s name alerted security on each airport’s computer system, set up by DHS, to protect the United States against terrorism. The boy was accompanied by mother Naushaba Nadeem, 35, and her three other children, Sana, nine, Fareeha, also nine, and Iftikhar, five. Naushaba, a doctor, said: “At Manchester airport we had to wait three hours while staff checked everything out. At Philadelphia they cancelled our tickets and I started crying.”

Javaid, whose passport now contains a special sticker saying that he has had security checks, said: “We felt scared and didn’t know what was going on.” The family moved to Blackburn from Saudi Arabia in 2002. Javaid’s father Nadeem Iqbal, 48, a consultant anaesthetist, said: “My son is traumatized by his experience and says he doesn’t want to fly to America again.” Salim Mulla, of the Lancashire Council of Mosques, said: “This doesn’t help relationships with different faiths.” Professor Eric Grove, director of the Centre for International Security at Salford University, said: “It is unlikely that a seven-year-old child is a suicide bomber. There must be a right balance to counter terrorism.”