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A US plane carrying 116 illegal Indian immigrants landed at the Amritsar International Airport late Saturday night, official sources said. A C-17 aircraft landed at the airport around 11.35 pm as against the expected time of 10 pm, sources said. This is the second batch of such Indians to be deported by the Donald Trump administration as part of its crackdown on illegal immigrants.
It was not immediately clear whether the deportees were in shackles, like the previous batch was. The deportees will be allowed to head to their homes after completion of formalities including immigration, verification, and background checks.
Many from the first batch of illegal immigrants landed here on February 5, most of them, from Punjab, 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.
Earlier, there were reports that the plane would carry 119 immigrants, but as per an updated list of passengers, the number of deportees in the second batch was 116, sources said.
Of 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.
The families of some of the deportees reached the airport to receive them.
A third plane carrying 157 deportees is expected to land on February 16, sources said.
On February 5, a US military aircraft carrying 104 illegal Indian immigrants landed at the Amritsar airport. Of them, 33 each were from Haryana and Gujarat, and 30 were from Punjab.
The family members of the second batch of illegal Indian immigrants deported seemed in a state of shock, with many of them saying that they raised money by pledging farm land and cattle to send them abroad for a bright future.
A family member of Daljit Singh, a native of Kurala Kalan village in the Tanda area of Hoshiarpur district, said a travel agent duped him.
Kamalpreet Kaur, the wife of Daljit, alleged that her husband had been deceived by the travel agent who promised him a direct flight to the US but instead, took him via the “donkey route” — an illegal and risky pathway used by migrants to enter the US.
Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann attacked the Centre, as he did earlier, over the landing of US planes carrying the immigrants at Amritsar airport. “Do not make our holy city a deport centre,” he said.
Amritsar is known for the Golden Temple, the Durgiana Mandir, the Ram Tirath temple, Jallianwala Bagh and the Gobindgarh Fort, he said.
The CM visited the international airport in Amritsar and said his government has made arrangements to take the Punjab residents from among the second batch of deportees to their home towns.
He said his administration has also offered to take the deportees from Haryana to their destinations.
However, the Haryana government has already made similar arrangements.
The deportees from the other states will travel to Delhi from Amritsar on a plane on Sunday morning, Mann said, adding, food arrangement has been made for them.
Mann said there are many airbases in the country and planes carrying immigrants can land at any one of those.
“Will they (the authorities) allow the landing (of a plane carrying immigrants) in Vatican City, if they (immigrants) hail from there?” he asked.
Replying to a question on BJP leader R P Singh’s post on X that Amritsar is the closest international airport for planes entering India from the US, Mann wondered that in that case, why the Centre has not started flight services to the US from the city, which has been the demand of the state government.
BJP general secretary Tarun Chugh accused Mann of “doing politics” over deportees.
Congress leader Partap Singh Bajwa said the AAP government in Punjab “failed” to curb human trafficking and asked Mann how many travel agents were booked for human trafficking in the last three years.
A four-member Special Investigation Team, headed by Additional Director General of Police, NRI Affairs, Praveen Sinha, was recently formed by Punjab Director General of Police Gaurav Yadav to probe complaints regarding the involvement of fraudulent travel agents in deceptive immigration practices.
The DGP on Saturday requested the public to come forward with any information about these rackets.
