US deportees on second flight back home handcuffed, chained; Sikh youth boarded without turban
CHANDIGARH, FEB 16 : 117 Indians deported from the United States (US) landed at the Amritsar International Airport at 11.40 pm on Saturday.
Deportees alleged that the men had their hands cuffed and legs chained while the women and minor children aboard the second US Air Force plane, C-17 Globemaster III were let free. Additionally, Sikh youth were deported without turbans.
Of the 117 deportees, 65 are from Punjab, 33 are from Haryana, eight from Gujarat, three from Uttar Pradesh, two each from Goa, Maharashtra, and Rajasthan, and one each from Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir.
The deported illegal immigrants included four women and two minors, including a six-year-old girl and a 10-year-old boy, and 112 men. Most of the deportees are in the age group of 18 to 30 years.
Sources added that this time the difference was that the women were not handcuffed and chained, unlike the last time when women were also in shackles.
Sources said that after security clearance, immigration, and background checks, the deportees were given food. The illegal immigrants who hailed from Punjab were then taken to their homes by Punjab Police at around 4:30 am on Sunday.
The Haryana government also made transportation arrangements for the deportees from the state by sending police buses. As a few families had come to the airport to receive their children, they were not handed over to their kin and were told to go back.
“While those from Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Goa were sent early this morning on flights from Amritsar, coordinated by the Union government,” said an officer.
Daljit Singh of Kurala Kalan village in Hoshiarpur, who was among the deportees, claimed that they were handcuffed with their legs chained during the journey. “Our legs were chained and hands were also cuffed,” he said.
Singh said he was taken through the ‘dunki route’.
Saurabh of Chandiwala village in Ferozepur said, “We were handcuffed and chained, put in the plane and sent back. They treated us very badly and humiliated us.”
Two cousin brothers from Gurdaspur district, who were deported back, said that they were threatened by the US army personnel while being deported and tortured.
“We crossed the US border on January 27, and the authorities put us in the camp for 18 days and never listened to us. Then we were put on the plane, handcuffed, and sent back, never allowed even to speak,” said one of them.
The C-17 aircraft that landed around 11:35 pm on Saturday was the second batch of Indians to be deported by the Donald Trump administration as part of its crackdown on illegal immigrants.
Cuffed and shackled illegal Indian migrants being deported on a US military aircraft.
If agriculture was profitable, Indians wouldn’t move abroad: Dallewal on US deportation
Another controversy has arisen: the Sikh youth were deported and were not allowed to tie their turbans, returning with open hair.
Senior Shiromani Akali Dal leader Bikram Singh Majithia said, “Bhagwant Mann and his ministers are playing to the gallery on the deportation of youth from the USA, but shockingly and shamelessly, they are silent on bringing Sikh youth bare-headed without turbans. Not a single word on this major issue.”
“Why Bhagwant Mann? Is it because you don’t use the word ‘Singh’ in your name? Shame on you for such dirty politics. I strongly condemn this action of US authorities for bringing Sikh youth without turbans. I also urge the Ministry of External Affairs to immediately take up the matter with US authorities so that such an incident is never repeated in the future,” he added.
Shiromani Gurdwara Parbhandak Committee (SGPC) Member Gurcharan Singh also raised this issue and condemned the kind of treatment meted out to the Sikh youth.
He said that the SGPC would write to the US authorities in this regard. “We gave the turbans to the youth once they landed at the airport after we came to know about this,” he said.
-PTI
