India seeks report from US on arrest of national

India said it will seek a report from its US mission into the arrest of an Indian documentary film maker at the Houston airport for allegedly carrying suspicious Islamic jihad literature, brass knuckles and $10,000 in cash.

Vijay Kumar, 40, was arrested at George Bush Intercontinental airport on Friday after 'acting suspicious', when screeners thought they saw a possible handgun in a scan of his baggage.

"We will seek a report into the incident," Overseas Indian Affairs Minister Vayalar Ravi said.

Kumar was in Houston to lecture a Hindu organisation about Islamic fundamentalism and the books packed in his checked luggage were educational tools, authorities and his lawyer told the court.

Attorneys for Kumar said that he has surrendered his passport. The books and radical material was found in stacks, packed in Kumar's carry-on luggage, according to the police report.

US officers also claimed to have found a pair of brass-knuckles in the luggage he had checked with his airline to be carried in the cargo hold of the aircraft.