NEW DELHI, Feb 17: Reports of suffering and dehumanising treatment of the Indian deportees from the United States has kept surfacing since early February when the first flight had brought deported illegal immigrants back home.
According to the deportees, even in the third flight that landed in Amritsar on Sunday, they were shackled and ill-treated in the US army aircraft during the flight. The reports of sending the Indian deportees handcuffed and shackled in the first flight that arrived on February 4 had created a political storm after which the Centre had promised to take up the matter with the US authorities to give humane treatment to the deportees and not to treat them as criminals.
The most recent incident involves deportees from the third batch, who have shared disturbing accounts of their treatment, including claims of “mental torture” and being forced to remove their turbans.
On Sunday night, a US military aircraft carrying 112 Indians living illegally in the United States landed at Amritsar airport, marking the third such batch to be deported as part of the US administration’s crackdown on illegal immigrants. This group arrived within 24 hours of another flight returning a similar batch of deportees.
Among the 112 illegal immigrants returned was Jatinder Singh, a 23-year-old from Amritsar. Singh had crossed the US border in November 2024 in search of work to support his family. He was detained shortly after arriving and spent two weeks in a detention camp.
According to Jatinder, his time in the camp was filled with humiliation and abuse. He claimed that US authorities forced him to remove his turban, an important symbol of his Sikh faith, despite his objections.
“I was sent to a detention camp for two weeks after I was caught entering the US border on November 27 last year. I left home on September 12 last year. At the detention camp, they made me remove my turban despite my objection. They said it was their rule and threw the turban in the dustbin,” Jatinder said. Jatinder also described his treatment on the flight back to India, stating that he was shackled for around 36 hours. He, along with other deportees, faced harsh conditions on the military aircraft.
Like many others, Jaswinder Singh, a 21-year-old from Moga in Punjab, shared a similar experience. He described how he was forced to remove his turban and all his clothes, except for a T-shirt, trousers, socks, and shoes. During his time in detention, he was forbidden from wearing his turban. “They said, ‘Who will be responsible if any of you hangs self to death?’” Jaswinder said.
“For all the days we were at the detention centre, we were not allowed to wear a turban,” he said, recalling the humiliation. Jaswinder also spoke about the flight back to India. “Our hands and feet were chained,” he said. “If anyone stood up even for a minute to stretch, the US authorities on board would reprimand us and order us to sit down. We shivered in the cold, as we were given only plastic sheets, which were not enough in the biting cold.”
Jaswinder was part of the second batch of 116 Indian nationals deported by the US on Saturday. The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), the body responsible for the management of gurdwaras (Sikh temples), expressed outrage and condemned the US authorities for not allowing the Sikh deportees to wear their turbans during their detention and flight.
SGPC officials, who were assigned to provide ‘langar’ (free meals) and bus services for the deportees on Saturday night at the airport, also supplied ‘dastar’ (turbans) to the Sikh deportees.
Gurcharan Singh Grewal, the SGPC General Secretary, expressed regret over the treatment of the Sikh deportees. “It is a matter of regret that deportees were brought in shackles and Sikh deportees were not wearing turbans,” he said. Grewal stated that the SGPC would soon raise the issue with the US authorities. “Turban is the part of a Sikh,” he added.
(Manas Dasgupta)
