A US military aircraft carrying 116 illegal Indian immigrants landed at the Amritsar International Airport late Saturday night, with one deportee claiming they were handcuffed with their legs chained during the journey.
The C-17 aircraft, which landed at the airport 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 after February 5.
A third plane carrying 157 deportees is expected to land on Sunday, sources said.
After immigration and background check, the deportees hailing from Punjab were taken to their homes in police vehicles at around 4.30 am on Sunday. The Haryana government also made transportation arrangements for the deportees from the state.
However, two youths from Rajpura in Patiala district, who were among the deportees, were arrested by the police in connection with a murder case upon their landing in Amritsar.
They accused — Sandeep Singh alias Sunny and Pradeep Singh — were wanted in a murder case registered in Rajpura in 2023.
Many from the first batch of illegal immigrants who landed here on February 5, most of them from Punjab, had said they wanted to migrate to the US for a better life for their families, but were duped by their agents.
Their dreams were shattered when they were caught on the US border and sent back in shackles.
Among the fresh batch of deportees from Punjab, many shared their ordeal with the media on Sunday after they reached their homes, telling how fraudulent travel agents duped them after taking huge sums of money and promising them legal entry to the US.
Among the fresh batch of deportees, 65 are from Punjab, 33 from Haryana, eight from Gujarat, two each from Uttar Pradesh, Goa, Maharashtra and Rajasthan, and one each from Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. Most of them are aged 18 to 30, as per the sources.
Daljit Singh, who was among the deportees who reached Amritsar on Saturday night, claimed they were handcuffed with their legs chained during the journey.
Last time too the deportees had claimed they were in shackles.
“Our legs were chained and hands were also cuffed,” Daljit told reporters in Hoshiarpur.
Daljit, a native of Kurala Kalan village in Punjab’s Hoshiarpur district, while replying to a question, said he was taken through the ‘donkey route’ — an illegal and risky pathway used by migrants to enter the US.
Daljit’s wife Kamalpreet Kaur said her husband was deceived by a travel agent who promised him a direct flight to the US but instead took him via the donkey route Most of the family members of the second batch of deportees looked in a state of shock, with many saying they raised money by pledging farm land and cattle to send them abroad for a bright future.
A relative of Gurjinder Singh (27), a deportee, told reporters the family sold an acre of land and spent nearly Rs 50-55 lakh to send him abroad.
“The travel agent promised to send him legally, but he later took him through a donkey route,” Gurjinder’s relative said.
Punjab NRI Affairs Minister Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal and Power Minister Harbhajan Singh met some of the deportees at the airport on Saturday night and said the state government stood by them like a rock One of the deportees told Dhaliwal that he along with his cousin spent Rs 40 lakh each for reaching the US. Both belong to a village near Kalanaur in Punjab’s Gurdaspur district.
Dhaliwal said the government will send the travel agents who duped the youths behind bars and urged the deportees to come forward and lodge their complaints.