Amritsar: Walking over dead bodies, crammed into trolleys for hours, and pressing on for days without food or water. The horrors keep coming back to many of the 104 Indians deported from the US on a military aircraft that landed in Amritsar Wednesday afternoon.
Those ThePrint spoke to said their ordeal worsened with each passing day.
It began with a dream—that of a better life in the US. To make that dream a reality, many sold their land or jewellery, took out bank loans, and paid agents who assured them entry into the US through indirect routes.
Jaspal Singh, 33, from Gurdaspur, was living in the UK before he decided to move to the US for better opportunities. It took him six months to reach the US via the ‘dunki’ route.
“I saw half a dozen dead bodies in the Panama jungles. I saw people dying of hunger and illness. It was horrific,” says Jaspal, now back home in Gurdaspur. Many like him endured harrowing journeys to reach the US, only to be sent back to India. Their agents’ phones remain switched off, and payments they made are now beyond the point of recovery.
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Life behind bars in the US
Daler Singh of Amritsar’s Salempura village even managed to reach California but was arrested at the border and sent to jail. Daler says he had to share a cell, designed for a dozen inmates, with at least 200 others. The conditions were inhumane—no room to stretch one’s legs or even breathe properly. The rooms were freezing cold, and inmates were given only aluminum foil to cover themselves, Daler recalls.
Every 3–4 hours, a US jail official would knock on the door and throw in a dozen fruit cans, chocolates, and biscuits. There was never any proper food. “The dream of starting a life in the US kept me alive. Otherwise, I would have been long dead,” says Daler, adding that these conditions persisted for a fortnight before a US official told inmates they would be released soon. “I thought I was finally going to live in an American city,” says Daler.
But on the day of their so-called release, their hands were tied, their feet chained, and they were made to sit in a bus, which took them to an US Air Force military base. “Mid-flight, we realised we were landing in India,” Daler tells ThePrint.
The haunting aftermath
Back home in Gurdaspur, Jaspal can’t sleep. Every time he tries to catch some shuteye, flashes of those harrowing nights come back to haunt him.
His phone was stolen by the ‘dunki’ mafia, along with his savings of 600 USD. All he was left with were the shirt and trousers he wore throughout his six-month journey. “I was beaten, threatened at gunpoint to hand over my belongings—or be killed.”
He now faces the crushing burden of repaying loans of Rs 40 lakh taken from relatives, banks, and by mortgaging his wife’s jewelry. “The dream of a better life destroyed me. If the government provided better opportunities in India, why would we even think of going elsewhere?” he laments.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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