Two vacationing Kuwaitis were still simmering Saturday after cops questioned them for hours about a pair of pressure cookers spotted in the trunk of their car at a fancy Midtown hotel.
The men were not arrested, but police sources said they remain under investigation.
The questioning was “disgusting” and “weird,” said Ayoub Alawadhi — who insisted that he and his pal, Mohammad Alotaibi, will use the cookers to prepare rice, chicken and meat.
Alawadhi said he had no idea why he was being questioned until a cop told him pressure cookers were used in the Boston Marathon bombing.
“They said, ‘You haven’t heard about Boston?’ And I said, ‘No.’ And they told me about Boston.”
Alotaibi, 20, and Alawadhi, 21, who are studying mechanical engineering at Boise State University in Idaho, drove up to the InterContinental Hotel on East 48th Street on Friday evening.
When they popped the trunk, a doorman spotted the two pressure cookers. The doorman called Crime Stoppers, and NYPD counterterrorism and intelligence officers soon arrived to question the men.
More than a dozen cops responded, Alotaibi and a hotel worker said.
“The police questioned us for three hours. It was a little scary,” said Alawadhi.
It took awhile to figure out why the cops were interrogating them, Alawadhi said.
“They said they found the pressure cookers. I said, ‘Yes, what’s wrong with that?’ ” he recounted.
Alawadhi said he and Alotaibi just completed summer classes at a Michigan university.
They said they bought the pressure cookers at an Arab supermarket in Dearborn, Mich., since similar pressure cookers aren’t available in Boise.
“They only have them in Arabian supermarkets,” he said.
Alawadhi said they put the cookers in the back of their car and drove to Manhattan for a few days of sightseeing fun. Then they planned to drive back to Idaho.
“I am leaving New York because of this,” he said. “We were supposed to stay until Tuesday, but we are leaving Sunday because of this.”
Seven timed pressure-cooker bombs were used in a 2006 attack on trains in Mumbai that killed more than 200 people.
Pressure cookers were also used in a failed bombing in Times Square in 2010 and another failed attack in British Columbia in 2013.
Additional reporting by Bill Sanderson