Here's the text of the article, which was posted to Usenet on 12/16/2001 (I've put the new information in boldface):
On Nov. 25, INS officers and local police descended on a gas station in Torrington CT and arrested Indian national Ayazuddin Sheerazi, 32, who was watching the station for his uncle, as well as watching his two cousins, 11 and 7. He was led away in handcuffs under the 'Patriot' act as being suspected of involvement with the anthrax mailings. His two cousins were left alone at the station and are still having trouble coping and are prone to bursting into tears at school. Under the terms of the 'Patriot' act, the government can hold a foreign national indefinitely under suspicion of terrorism without charges. Sheerazi was never charged with a crime. He was at first charged with overstaying his multiple entry visa, but an extension to that had been filed on July 10, and the judge terminated that charge. Nevertheless he was held for 18 days. For the first 24 hours he was shunted through the Torrington and Hartford jails then the Hartford INS building without being fed, told why he was being detained, or allowed to call his relatives to tell them of his whereabouts. On the second night, he ended up at the Hartford Correctional Center. He was then ferried to the INS building lockup every day, then back to the Hartford jail every night. As he was observing Ramadan, he was prohibited from eating meat, but vegetarian foods were not provided, so he lived mainly on white bread for the 18 days. 'But the hardest part for me was not knowing for 18 days. I kept asking the immigration officials Why am I here? What have I done? They wouldn't tell me, and then finally the Pakistanis (other prisoners) seemed to know that we were all being held because of the anthrax cases'. Isolated and uncertain as to how long he would be imprisoned, Sheerazi was particularly humiliated by the use of leg chains every day when transported to the INS building. 'I cried in my cell at night. I prayed for my release. We are from a family that is respected in India. But to be led away in chains is associated with a great deal of shame'. The 'evidence' that led to this arrest was provided by Robert Janco Jr., 35, of Torrington, who told an FBI agent on Nov. 2 that he had overheard two 'Arabs' in a bar on Sept. 8 talking about going to New York to bring letters to 'Kathy', a Vietnamese woman. (Vietnamese Kathy Nguyen died mysteriously of anthrax in New York on Oct. 31). He told a differnt agent on Nov. 19 that he had specifically heard the men planning to mail letters containing anthrax. Janco failed a lie detector test and is being charged with two counts of making false statements. Meanwhile, Sheerazi and one of the Pakistanis have been released, although he was still required to post $2,000 bail, despite all charges being terminated. Sheerazi, who had been overseeing the US end of his family's rug export business in Bombay, had loved living and working in America. 'In all the respectable families in Bombay, boys grow up dreaming about coming to America and doing business in the most successful business country on earth. Now I was living that dream. Everyone here treated me so well'. That has changed now, however. 'I'm leaving and returning to India as soon as Ramadan is over next week. I loved being in this country and working hard to build my family's business back in India. But now I am having too much trouble understanding what happened to me here.'