Jalandhar: A day before the scheduled landing of a second plane of deportees from the US on the night of Saturday (February 15), Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann strongly opposed the Union government’s move of landing deported Indians at Amritsar and termed it a conspiracy to defame Punjab and Punjabis.
As per the manifest for the February 15 flight, a total of 120 deportees are to land in Amritsar, while 157 Indians will be deported in another flight on February 16.
The deportees have been referred to as ‘aliens’ in the manifest in line with the US legal term for foreign nationals.
The first flight that transported 104 Indian deportees in handcuffs and shackles had reached Amritsar on February 5, leading to an uproar over their treatment.
“They are saying that the second flight will also land in Amritsar, but why? I have reached out to the Ministry of External Affairs [MEA] and the Ministry of Home Affairs [MHA] to explain their criteria for choosing Amritsar” as the place where the deportees’ flights are to land, Mann said at an emergency press conference in Amritsar on Friday.
He added: “I asked them why they chose Amritsar. Is it to defame Punjab and Punjabis? We are waiting for their response.”
“I am going to protest strongly against this move of the Union government. I have requested MEA and the MHA authorities to change the route of the US military plane and take it wherever they want, whether to Ahmedabad, Delhi or Hindon, as it will stop at three or four places for refuelling,” Mann also said.
The chief minister, accompanied by Punjab NRI affairs minister Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal, repeatedly alleged that the Union government never misses a chance to defame and target Punjab and Punjabis, whether it is on the issue of farmers, Punjab’s Rural Development Fund or deportation, which he said was a national problem.
Questioning Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s meeting with US President Donald Trump during his visit to Washington, Mann said, “At this moment, when I am addressing the press conference, Modi is flying back to India from America. He is coming back after meeting Trump and the flight of deportees is also coming behind [him]. Is he bringing this flight of handcuffed deportees as a gift?”
In Washington, Modi had raised ‘human trafficking system’ in connection with illegal immigration
When asked about undocumented Indian immigrants in the US, Modi when in Washington said that “as far as India and the US are concerned, we have always been of the same opinion, and that is that any verified Indian who is in the US illegally, we are fully prepared to take them back to India”.
Modi also claimed that illegal immigration was connected to a “human trafficking system”.
“Our bigger fight actually is against this ecosystem or this system that encourages such gangs to thrive, and I can tell you that India will completely support your endeavour,” he continued.
During a special briefing, foreign secretary Vikram Misri also made mention of an “ecosystem” that was enabling a “racket” driving illegal immigration, saying that the return of deportees to India “is not the end of the story”.
“… It is the responsibility of both countries to do something about this,” Misri said, adding that Modi had requested cooperation from the US in “finding out more details about these rackets”. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies in both countries could also cooperate “if need be” to “actually try and do something about these ecosystems that enable this particular phenomenon”.
Misri did not answer a question about whether the shackling of the first batch of deportees was raised during Modi’s visit.
The joint statement issued during Modi’s visit said that he and Trump had committed to “aggressively addressing illegal immigration and human trafficking by taking strong action against bad actors, criminal facilitators and illegal immigration networks” while simultaneously facilitating travel for students, professionals and tourists.
Deportees should ‘at least be received with dignity’: Mann
Back in Amritsar, Mann also said of the prime minister that he “claims Trump is ‘my friend’ and that he addresses him as ‘Trump’ only, and chants slogans of ‘abki bar Trump sarkar’ and [attends] those Howdy Modi events, but did he even speak to Trump about anything?”
He claimed that when Modi and Trump spoke with each other on Friday morning in Indian time, US authorities were handcuffing the next batch of deportees and tying them with shackles.
“They are coming back in a US military plane. Is this your foreign policy?”, he asked.
He said that he would receive the deportees at the airport this time. “We are annoyed with the Union government,” he added.
Further, Mann claimed that the Modi government’s explanation for the upcoming flights’ landing in Amritsar was that 67 of the total 119 or 120 deportees are from Punjab.
“If that is the criteria, then why didn’t they land the previous flight at Ahmedabad or Ambala”, he asked, adding that in that flight “there were 33 deportees from Gujarat and Haryana each”.
“When it comes to the landing of Rafale [jets], it is done at the Ambala air base, but when the deportees’ flight arrives, it has to be Punjab? You think we are kids?” he said. “Don’t you [the Modi government] think that we understand that you are trying to defame us?”.
The Punjab chief minister also asked if anyone noticed interviews given by Gujarati deportees in the media.
“It is only the Punjabi deportees who have been interviewed everywhere. The BJP never misses any chance of targeting Punjab and Punjabis, because they know that Punjabis do not like them. It is only Punjab who defeats them and it was Punjabis who made Modi withdraw the farm laws. They have animosity in their heart for Punjab. Modi had to come on TV to announce the repeal of the three farm laws,” he added.
Mann continued to say that the deportees should be dealt with dignity.
“They have broken the law of another country and not of our country. At least they should be received with dignity. A small country like Colombia dared to speak against the Trump government and brought the deportees in their flight instead of the US military aircraft,” he said, adding to say that the both Gujarat and Haryana governments did not receive the deportees from their state.
“We will receive our deportees like we did last time on February 5 and drop them home. We will not send the deportees in a jail inmates’ van the way the Haryana government did. We will also think about the rehabilitation of the deportees in Punjab,” he claimed.
Misri in a press conference last week had said that any “mistreatment” during deportation flights was part of an “ongoing conversation” between New Delhi and Washington and that the former has “registered its concern” with US authorities over the handling of deportees.
External affairs minister S. Jaishankar said in parliament that “standard operating procedure for deportation by aircraft used by ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] … provides for the use of restraints”.
He said this procedure did not apply to women, but The Wire has reported that some women aboard the February 5 flight indicated that they too were restrained.
