Racial profiling made its presence felt even before the cast for Midnight's Children left London for the United States.

According to reports, Anthony Zaki, who plays the character of Saleem [among others] in the theatrical adaptation of Salman Rushdie's novel, was denied a visa to tour the US.

Zaki is a Pakistan-born British citizen and plays a leading role in the play, which centres around the lives of children born on the midnight of August 14-15, when India and Pakistan were partitioned.

He has been an actor in England for 15 years. In the play, his primary role is of Ahmed, who thinks he is the father of the chief protagonist, Saleem. Besides, he plays a politician ousted in a coup and a magician.

"I was the only one who was rejected for a visa. The foreign office had to get involved before I got a visa," Zaki told a New York newspaper. More was in store for him when he reached the US.

He said he was the only one to be interrogated, photographed and fingerprinted. Under the new US Patriot law, citizens or nationals of 25 countries are required to be photographed and fingerprinted at the port of arrival. The special registration programme is geared to keep track of non-immigrants who visit the country.

"When we landed in Detroit, all the others went through customs, but I was detained and interrogated. Maybe that was understandable. But when they fingerprinted and photographed me, I really felt like a criminal," Zaki told the newspaper.