"A misunderstanding lead to a wild news. What the outside world heard about the incident was totally untrue", actress Samyuktha Varma has informed her friends and relatives in Kerala.

Samyuktha Varma along with her sister, parents, playback singer Biju Narayanan and mime artist Jayaraj Varrier was traveling from Chicago to New York when the incident took place. They were on a culture presentation tour in the United States. Samyuktha was an invitee to the Fokana annual meet of the Malayalee group where she was given the best artist award. She was to present dance recitals in various cities in US.

When the flight from Chicago landed in New York on last Tuesday (16 July) FBI officers took Actress Samyuktha and others to a room for questioning on false information given by a woman passenger.

Two F16 fighter plains escorted the flight on either side before landing.
It was the dress and language of Samyuktha and her sister Sanghamitra that made the passenger in the flight to misinform authorities about a possible highjack. It was pajama kurtha they were wearing and the woman passenger took them for Pakistanis. They were engaged in conversation. They laughed a lot. While talking somebody among them passed a tissue paper and the woman suspected that they were handing out a kind of written message. The woman was seen disturbed and got up several times and went up the airhostess and talked to her. Later when they were about to land Samyuktha and her sister went near the windows to have a look down. The woman once again went to the airhostess and soon the two F16 fighters appeared on either side. Even then Samyuktha and associates were unaware of what is happening.

It was only when they landed in New York and accosted by officers calling themselves from FBI that they knew what the drama is about. "The officers were gentle and extremely polite", Samyuktha informs. "They just asked routine questions. When they came to know that we were Indians and artists they let us go. We were there only for two hours. The news that we were arrested and interrogated for six hours is not true".

It was CNN and some websites that let out the news. Once the misunderstanding was cleared the news was corrected.

The New York Mayor will tender an apology to Samyuktha Varma and others for the inconvenience caused, reported the newspapers in New York.