After being arrested for making his own digital clock, the newest science celebrity says he lost his innocence.

“I’ve lost my innocence. I can never look at the world in the same way. I like science, but I look like a threat because of my brown skin,” the teenager — currently suspended from school, said.

When he showed it to his engineering teacher at MacArthur High School in Irving, Texas, he was advised not to show it to anyone else. “He told me it looked like a bomb,” 14 year old ‘Clock-Maker’ said.

‘They made me feel like a criminal’ – Ahmed

The youngster ignored the teacher’s warning and showed it to another teacher. “She said it looked a bomb, and called the police.” The teenager said he was taken away in handcuffs. “They took me there without my parents. They made me feel like a criminal,” he said.

Ahmed said: “I built the clock to impress my teacher, but when I showed it to her, she thought it was a threat to her. So it was really sad she took the wrong impression of it.”

The boy’s father, Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed, said he learned of the controversy when he received a call from the Irving Police saying “my son had been arrested for making a bomb”.

“I think it is because of Islamophobia and the [impact] of 911.” Asked if he believed his son would have been detained for the clock had he not been Muslim, he said: “No”.

Source: TOI