WASHINGTON: In what may be the first legal victory over a major airline accused of post-Sept. 11 discrimination, Satnam Dhillon, a Fremont, California resident, has secured an apology from National Airlines for debarring him from boarding a flight a month after the terrorist attacks. “That’s all I wanted from day one,” said Dhillon.

Dhillon, who wears a long beard and turban in accordance with his religious beliefs, missed his flight to Las Vegas on Oct. 16, 2001, when, according to him, he was surrounded by six police officers and escorted away from the boarding gate at San Francisco International Airport.

He says it was because of his appearance that the incident took place, while the National Airlines officials at the time said it was because the pilot saw Dhillon making an “obscene gesture.”

After two years of litigation, the airline issued a new statement, saying it “sincerely regrets” that Dhillon was denied boarding as a result of an “apparent misunderstanding.”

“In the aftermath of the extraordinary events of Sept. 11, 2001, National Airlines’ only interest at that time was the safety and security of the flying public, including you,” wrote Raymond T. Nakano, senior vice president of the airline company, according to the Oakland Tribune, a daily published from San Francisco.

Dhillon, a U.S. citizen since 1980, says he presented his ticket to a boarding agent but was told to step aside. After the plane had been boarded, he says, airline officials said he could not board at the “pilot’s discretion.”

He said he was then taken to the airline’s front ticket counter and questioned and searched for more than two hours. He was eventually placed on a later flight but only after airline officials learned he was a producer for Rangeela TV, an Indian station. Dhillon’s lawyer filed a formal discrimination suit in San Francisco’s U.S. District Court. His lawyer, Javed Ellahie, said the airline filed a motion to dismiss the case, but a judge found enough evidence for trial.

On Nov. 4, Dhillon said, he received what he wanted all along ---- an apology ---- and he dropped the case. He said he would use the letter from National Airlines to urge other victims of discrimination to fight for justice.

“We’re Americans just as anybody else,” he said. “This is my country. My kids were born here. We had nothing to do with the bad people (involved in the terrorist attacks),” he said.

Civil rights groups, which have monitored discrimination complaints since the Sept. 11 attacks, say Dhillon’s victory ---- albeit a moral one ----might be a first. “We’ve heard of a lot of cases like this,” said Kavneet Singh, spokesman for Sikh Media Watch and Resource Task Force, an activist group that received so many calls about airline discrimination after Sept. 11 that it added a passenger profiling report link to its Web site.