NEW DELHI: Three IIT students were detained by the Italian police in North Italy’s Ventimiglia town on Monday during checking for illegal immigrants. They were, however, released hours later following intervention by the Indian mission in Rome.
The ministry of external affairs identified one of the students as Akshit Goyal while news agencies stated that the other two were Deepak Bhatt and Uday Kusupati, the latter hailing from Kurnool.
While Akshit and Deepak are from IIT Delhi, Uday is from IIT Bombay. They were in Italy as tourists, carrying valid passports with Schengen visas. Uday thanked everyone for support on his FB post. He said he was back at INRIA (French research institute) where he is doing his internship. External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup said Italian authorities have admitted it was a “mistake” on their part.
After they were detained, the three IITians were flown along with other detainees to Bari, a town almost a 1000 km away in south of Italy. Swarup said the Indian Mission in Rome, after coming to know of the incident from a relative of Akshit, swung into action and contacted Italy officials.
