New Delhi: Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Sunday pointed out that India must lodge a protest if deportees from the United States were handcuffed and chained during their flight. He also expressed his dissatisfaction over the Americans’ decision to use a military aircraft to send back Indian deportees.
Tharoor was quoted as saying by ANI: “I am not happy about the Americans choosing to send a military aircraft.” He added that he had not seen any report on whether these returnees were also handcuffed and shackled. “If they were, we should definitely protest.”
On Saturday night, a US military aircraft with 117 Indian immigrants, who were living in the US illegally, landed in Amritsar. The C-17 aircraft, which landed at Amritsar airport around 11:35 pm on Saturday, was carrying the second batch of Indians deported by the Trump administration as part of its crackdown on illegal immigration.
Those on board the military aircraft claimed that they were handcuffed and their legs chained during the entire journey. “Our legs were chained, and hands were also cuffed,” one of the deportees, Daljit, told reporters in Hoshiarpur, as per a report in PTI. Another deportee, Sourav, who arrived at his village Chandiwala in Punjab’s Ferozepur district on Sunday, also claimed that they were shackled during the journey to Amritsar.
Earlier allegations by deportees
Earlier on February 5, the US military’s C-17 aircraft with Indian deportees landed in Amritsar. A total of 104 Indian nationals came on this flight that landed in Amritsar. Many deportees in this plane alleged that their hands and legs were tied for the entire journey and were only unshackled after they landed in Amritsar. This sparked public outcry across the nation, with the opposition demanding Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take up the issue with the US during his recent visit to that country. After the nationwide outrage, India expressed its concerns to the US regarding the treatment of deportees.
