‘Detained Pak taxi driver being treated like Osama bin Laden by US authorities’

NEW YORK - A Pakistani civilian, who was arrested last month along with three other persons in connection with the botched Times Square bombing plot, is being “treated like Osama bin Laden” by American agencies, Pakistan’s Consul-General in Boston Barry Hoffman has said.

Hoffman said Pir Khan, a taxi driver, is being held in maximum security at the Plymouth County House of Correction.

Hoffman, who visited Khan at the jail earlier this week, said he has been wearing leg irons, chains and is handcuffed.

“It seems kind of excessive for someone who has never been in jail before and lived in the US for almost 20 years and has an American wife,” The Boston Globe quoted Hoffman, as saying.

Hoffman also criticised the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement authorities for putting Khan, 43, under such tight security despite the fact that he has not being charged criminally.

“He’s bewildered by the whole thing and I’m wondering why he has to be in maximum security,” he said.

Khan along with other two men, who were arrested in raids across north west United States, are suspected to have provided money to Faisal Shahzad, the confessed New York bomb plotter. (ANI)