A third American aircraft ferrying 112 illegal Indian immigrants landed in Punjab’s Amritsar on Sunday, taking the number of arrivals over the weekend to 228 and the total number of people sent back to India since the start of the current deportation exercise on Feb 5 to 332.
The latest batch comprised 44 natives of Haryana, 33 from Gujarat, 31 of Punjab, two from Uttar Pradesh, and one each from Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, sources said. There was no official confirmation of the breakup.
The US military plane that landed at Amritsar air port on Saturday night brought back 116 deportees, 65 of them from Punjab. After the Punjab govt’s criticism of Haryana sending jail vans to transport the deportees back to their native places, the BJP-led govt sent a Volvo bus to pick up the new arrivals.
No member of the Bhagwant Mann-led Punjab govt was at the airport on Sunday night, unlike the previous two occasions. There were no family members of the returnees either. Minister Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal was there to receive the first batch on Feb 5. He was joined by cabinet colleague Harbhajan Singh this Saturday, ahead of the second flight’s arrival.
The Feb 5 flight brought 104 deportees, all of them handcuffed and shackled. The second flight, carrying 116 deportees, had only the men in restraints. Women and children were spared the shackles, sources said.
Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann pleaded for better treatment of deportees. He also asked the Union govt to have the second flight diverted to some other airport, but the only concession given was the deportees’ arrival at the main terminal instead of the one for cargo.
At a press conference, Mann had once again expressed anger over the flight landing in the holy city amid allegations of attempts by the Centre to “tarnish the image of Punjab and Punjabis”. When it was pointed out that the Centre had probably chosen Amritsar as the landing point for the deportation flight as it was nearer to the US than other Indian airports, Mann shot back: “If Amritsar is so close, then it would make sense to start flights from here to the US and Canada as we have been demanding.”
74 from Gujarat arrive
Eleven of the deportees in the batch of 33 that reached the SVPI airport on Monday were children and teens, the highest for a batch sent to Gujarat this month. Till now, three batches of illegal Indian immigrants have landed in Ahmedabad – 33 on Feb 6, eight on Feb 16 and 33 on Monday, taking the total to 74. The flights carrying them had arrived at the domestic terminal of the airport from Amritsar. All of them were escorted by state police teams to their respective districts in special vehicles.
Senior police officials said the Special Operations Group (SOG) and CID (IB) are questioning the deportees. However, no details have emerged yet, sources said.
While the returnees have not spoken to the media or authorities, relatives of some of them disclosed that they initially went to European countries on tourist visas but the subsequent details of their journey are not known.
