Women and children onboard the second deportation plane of the US that landed in Punjab’s Amritsar were “not restrained during the flight”, sources said on Sunday. The assertion came in the backdrop of the furore that was created amid claims of “ill-treatment” meted out to the first batch of deportees from the US.
The C-17 aircraft carrying over 115 illegal Indian immigrants, including women and children, landed at the Amritsar airport late on Saturday night, with the men among the deportees claiming they were in shackles during the journey.
It was the second batch of Indians to be deported by the Donald Trump administration as part of its crackdown on illegal immigrants.
On the deportation flight that arrived in Amritsar on Saturday, “women and children were not restrained during the flight”, the sources said.
These deportees are natives of Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Goa, Maharashtra and Rajasthan, and one each from Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir.
The second batch of illegal immigrants from the US, comprising 67 Punjabis, landed at Amritsar’s Sri Guru Ram Dass Jee International Airport on Saturday night in a special plane, officials said.
Earlier, a US military plane with 104 deportees landed in Amritsar on February 5.
Officials said besides 67 immigrants from Punjab, Saturday’s flight will have 33 people 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.
That was the second batch of Indians deported by the Trump government as part of a crackdown.
The deportation of these individuals is part of a wider crackdown by US immigration authorities on those who either entered the country illegally or overstayed their visas.
Sources have revealed that deportations will continue on a bi-weekly basis, with similar flights bringing back Indian nationals in the coming weeks, until all undocumented immigrants are returned to their home countries.
The government of India, through diplomatic channels, continues to work on repatriating its nationals who are affected by such deportations.
While the process has caused distress for many families, the authorities emphasise that the deportations are part of the ongoing effort to address illegal immigration, and those who wish to return home will be facilitated.
With the ongoing crackdown, both the US and India are taking steps to address immigration challenges while ensuring their respective laws are upheld.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump during their recent meeting stressed the need to fight against the “ecosystem” that lures people from ordinary families with big dreams and promises and brings them to other countries as illegal immigrants.
“We are of the opinion that anybody who enters and lives in another country illegally, they have absolutely no legal right or authority to live in that country,” PM Modi said at a joint press conference with Trump in the White House on Thursday.
Opposing the move to land the next plane carrying deported Indians at the Amritsar airport, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Friday described it as a “conspiracy of the Union government to defame Punjab and Punjabis”.
Interacting with the media here, the Chief Minister said that despite Punjab being the food bowl and sword arm of India, the move to land the plane carrying deported Indians from the US “is just another attempt of the Government of India to tarnish the image of Punjab globally”.
Mann questioned the move of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) to choose Amritsar for landing this plane whereas there are hundreds of other airports in the country.
