October 10: A bewildered J P Morgan executive, Uday Menon, who had come to Broadway to see an opera is accosted and handcuffed by police officers. The police were acting on a tip-off by the booking clerk, who believed that Menon was a suspicious character.

October 24: Mohammed Rafiq Butt, an illegal immigrant from Pakistan who was picked up for questioning by federal officials from the Queens area in New York after the Trade Center attacks was found dead in a New Jersey jail. He was nabbed after a priest from a local church had called the FBI on seeing six men of Middle-Eastern origin alight from a van.

October 31: Satpal Singh (name changed to hide identity) was picked up by the FBI, after a neighbour reported him. The neighbour, a college student, had observed that his food habits seemed Middle-Eastern and his appearance was apparently suspicious. Singh was let off after the FBI found that he was of Indian origin and a bonafide citizen.

I SPY: The growing suspicion is evident in the streets

These are not just three stray incidents. They are the outcome of a rash of unusual tips, 435,000 in all so far, received by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and have led to the detention of about 1,100 people-of whom the Government has not divulged any information as yet. They have, therefore, a poignant immigrant tale to tell.

Significantly, all three incidents happened well over a month after the September 11 bombing of the World Trade Center (WTC) and affected three individuals of different strata of the US society. Menon, in queue for a US citizenship is an investment banker on Wall Street. Butt was an illegal immigrant, earning bare sustenance by working as a daily wages labour in a super market. And Singh was a naturalised American who would eked out a living by working two jobs and so kept odd hours. The common factor was their South Asian heritage. And all of them were victims of jumpy individuals snitching on their neighbours. An Orwellian nightmare.

Menon, was reported by the booking clerk who grew suspicion when he sought two tickets for the most popular opera and also sported a foreign accent. The clerk feared that Menon was a potential suicide bomber and promptly reported it. Menon and his wife, oblivious that they had caused an alarm, arrived to celebrate their second wedding anniversary. The rest is history.

Similarly, Butt was reported by a suspicious priest, who observed his apparently "strange" habits-stringing their laundry, including their underwear, on the fence. Two months ago, an average New Yorker would not have given a thought to it. Prior to his deportation to Pakistan, however, the 55-year old Butt succumbed to a heart attack. Singh's profile was different, but his detention by the FBI happened in similar circumstances. Mercifully, the outcome was different.

SHAKY: The "model" Indian community is suddenly viewed as an enemy

South Asians, who along with immigrants of middle-eastern origin have borne the brunt of hate crimes post-September 11, are now coping with something even more frightening. From being viewed as a "model family", the they are now being suspected as enemies. To prove their loyalties, many have taken to sporting US flags on their cars or have them pasted all over their house or work windows.

"It is a case of explicit profiling with state sanction. All constitutional rights have been suspended," says Sohail Mohammed, a New Jersey immigration attorney, who represented several clients detained by the authorities in recent weeks.

In recent times, the 500,000 foreign students, bulk of which are South Asians and the trickle of new ones that arrive every day, have come under scrutiny. The ins is now tracking illegal immigrants, even coordinating with other investigative agencies.

"The new set of ins laws supplement existing laws and have given authorities more teeth and have been focussed on a narrow segment of the population," says Subhash Kateel, a community organiser working with a non-profit organisation, Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM). Not carrying a green card or passport on the person is considered a misdemeanour and can lead to a minimum fine of $100 and detention. In fact, along the Eastern corridor, from Massachusets to Washington, the Amtrack has made it mandatory for passengers to produce an ID before being issue a ticket.

"INS' new set of laws have been focussed on a narrow segment of the population." Subhash Kateel

The changes in law and the overall mood-seeking retribution for the dead-have only emboldened the authorities further. The US court of appeals decided on October 12, that it was constitutionally permissible for police to question a driver during a routine traffic stop, regarding the passenger's immigration status.

President George Bush's executive order, allowing military trials of non-US citizens, is then in some ways reflective of a type of sentiment sweeping the nation. There will be no judicial review and only the president or defence secretary can overturn a decision. The authorities believe they are in the right, and are fighting acts of war-not mere crimes.

Addressing a gathering of conservative lawyers last week, vice president Dick Cheney said, "The mass murder of Americans by terrorists, or the planning thereof, is not just another item on the criminal docket. It is a war against terrorism. Where military justice is called for, military justice will be dispensed."

There are others who make a case for the adoption of the British model of surveillance, where after a terrorist attack in 1993 the government installed cameras everywhere. They now want to go one step further. Install biometric systems, which will allow cameras to use face recognition technology to pick out previously profiled individuals passing through airports and embassies. Implicit in these moves is a strategy that will seek to slow down the entry of immigrants and foreign visitors into the country. Either by creating an enhanced surveillance environment or by elaborate checks and scrutiny of existing and future visa applicants.

"The fewer visas we issue the more thorough the background checks that can be conducted. Moreover, fewer visas also mean fewer foreign nationals living in the US, making it much easier to keep track of those allowed into the country," says Steven A. Camarota, Director of Research, Center for Immigration Studies.

The conservative elements in the US are considerably riled at the radically altered demographics in the country. During the 1990s, an average of over 1 million immigrants settled in the US each year. Immigration has become the determinate factor in US population growth: The 8.6 million immigrants who indicated that they had arrived between 1990 and 1998 represent 42 per cent of the 20.4 million increase in the total US population since 1990.

The September attacks showed there was no means of keeping track of individuals once they were in the US. Many would overstay their visas and the ins was never wiser. Few questioned the actions of investigative agencies when they did detain an illegal immigrant. However, the death of Butt and the harrowing tales of a few released detainees have begun to trigger a modicum of protest and could eventually lead to a challenge of some of the new laws that have been put in place. And, the Bush executive order has become the rallying point.

"The presidential order on military tribunals is the most serious infraction from the White House. He is basically saying that the Bill of Rights does not apply to non-citizens. The president has overstepped his brief. A dramatic example of such a precedent is the executive order of Harry Truman during the Korean war, which banned strikes in domestic steel mills. The Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional," says Timothy Lynch, director of the Washington-based Cato Institute's Project on Criminal Justice. In the US, an executive order, used only in exceptional circumstances, does not go through Congress. Normally, the Congress writes the law and the president executes it. In this case, it has been reversed.

Some members of Congress have begun to rebel against the order. "I don't know when, in the last 20 years, I have heard so many members of both parties come up and say, what the heck is going on?" senatory Partick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee told The New York Times.

The South Asian community itself is yet to be galvanised as a collective and most hope that the basic values of freedom espoused by the country so far would endure. "They are going too far and are impinging on the First Amendment rights and personal freedom. Currently, given the mood of the country, not many people will object. Hopefully, in a few months, this environment would change," says Sudhir Parikh who is president-elect of the Indian American Forum for Poltical Education.

Some non-profit bodies have begun to organise outreach programmes to sensitise the South Asian population about their rights. Participating in one of these programmesin Eddison, New Jersey, Stan Smith, attorney and program director with the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, said: "They are targeting a certain kind of people. It is racial profiling. We are in an extreme kind of situation. The atmosphere is one where illegal immigrants will be hunted down. It is a kind of anti-immigrant fervour."

The declining economic fortunes has enhanced the magnitude of this sentiment. "If the immigrant community don't take a stand now, it will only get worse," warns Mohammed.