New Delhi: Dutch authorities will release all 12 passengers arrested on a US Northwest Airlines plane bound for India on Wednesday after concluding they were not planning an attack, officials said on Thursday.
The 12 passengers are of Indian origin.
They all have cited Mumbai localities as their home addresses. All the passengers have Indian passport.
The 12 were taken off a Northwest Airlines flight after the plane was intercepted over Germany and taken back to Amsterdam airport by Dutch F-16s.
Dutch prosecutors will decide within three days whether to press charges against them.
The name of the detained passengers are Batliwala Mohammed Iqbal, Batliwala Noor Mohammed, Memom Yusuf Hazi Gaffar, Yusuf Mohammad, Imran Mohammad, Shakeel Usman Chotani, Suhail Abdul Aziz Nijami, Ayub Qadir, Sajid Qadir, Mustafa Gulam, Ayub Khan and Mohammad Qasravi Hasan.
Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma said that the Ministry of External Affairs has got in touch with the mission at The Hague.
He said: “Nobody has been arrested, but we have information that 12 people have been detained. At this point we cannot confirm how many of them carry Indian passports. But we know that all of them are born in Mumbai.”
Meanwhile two flights from Amsterdam to Mumbai have been cancelled.
The incident was not terrorism-related, the Dutch state broadcaster said on Thursday, citing the Justice Minister.
Wednesday's flight was escorted back to Schiphol Airport by Dutch fighter jets after the crew of the DC-10 became suspicious of some of the passengers, and 12 people aboard were detained.
But NOS news quoted Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner as saying there were no signs of a terrorist threat aboard the flight.
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