CHANDIGARH: During the 40-hour flight back home, the 104 illegal Indian immigrants deported from the US were not allowed to move from their seats, and their hands and legs were cuffed the entire time.They were only allowed to use the washroom after repeated requests and had to drag themselves to reach it.Calling the journey home more mentally traumatic than physically exhausting, 40-year-old Harwinder Singh from Tahli village in Punjab’s Hoshiarpur said they could not eat properly during the flight as they were handcuffed.“The crew members and officials of the US military plane forced us to eat while wearing handcuffs. Despite our repeated requests to them to remove the handcuffs, they did not listen as it fell on deaf ears.”Further narrating the trauma, Singh said that he and others endured it for nearly 40 hours on the flight. The deportees were not allowed to move from their seats, and their hands and legs remained cuffed throughout the journey. They were unshackled only after the plane landed at Amritsar International Airport.“We had to make countless requests to the crew for permission to use the restroom. We then had to drag ourselves to the lavatory, where the crew would open the door and push us inside,” he alleged.Singh was among the 104 illegal immigrants deported by the US in the first batch to India.Meanwhile, 27-year-old Davinderjit Singh from Jalandhar, who was deported and returned home last night, has reportedly gone missing. He left on his bike in the morning, and his family has been unable to find him since.
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