'Worse than hell': Indian immigrants claim they were handcuffed, tied with chains while being deported from US
World | India News | A group of deportees, including women and minors, recently arrived in Amritsar, Punjab. This event highlights ongoing immigration issues between India and other nations.
The Indian nationals, who were deported from the United States (US) on Wednesday (Feb 5), claimed they were chained, handcuffed and were not allowed to even use the washroom for 40 straight hours while onboard a US military aircraft.
Among the 104 deportees, 19 were women and 13 minors. They landed in Amritsar, a city in the Indian state of Punjab. The deportees said their feet were tied with chains and they were mistreated by the crew in the aircraft.
Calling the travel "worse than hell," a 40-year-old man Harwinder Singh said, After repeated requests, we were allowed to drag ourselves to the washroom. The crew would open the door of the lavatory and shove us in," Indian Express reported.
He said people could not eat properly for 40 hours as they were forced to eat with their hands tied. He said the entire journey was exhausting not only physically but also mentally.
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"We thought we were being taken to another camp. Then a police officer told us that we were being taken to India. We were handcuffed, and our legs were chained. These were opened at Amritsar airport," a 36-year-old man from Punjab’s Gurdaspur, Jaspal Singh told the news agency PTI.
But on Wednesday (Feb 5), after images of handcuffed immigrants went viral claiming they were Indians, the government fact-checked and said they were in reality Guatemalan nationals.
The US military plane C-17 took off from San Antonio on Wednesday (Feb 5) Texas carrying 104 illegal immigrants belonging to Punjab and neighbouring states. This was the first deportation to India under the presidency of Donald Trump.
According to PTI, 29 of the deportees are from Punjab, 33 each from Haryana and Gujarat, three each from Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh and two from Chandigarh.
(With inputs from agencies)
