Women shackled during flight; avoidable, says govt

Muskan, a 21-year-old Jagraon resident, along with 18 other women deportees spent the entire three-day journey to India aboard a US military aircraft in shackles. The Ministry of External Affairs today acknowledged this and said the matter had been raised with the US.

The C-17 aircraft carrying the 104 deported Indian migrants, including 13 minors, had landed at the Amritsar airport on Wednesday. Muskan, who was escorted to her residence by a police team comprising two women constables, told The Tribune that the hands and feet of all women deportees were cuffed and chained during the entire journey.

They were not allowed to move unnecessarily and unshackled only when they had to use the washroom. Three children — a boy and two minor girls aged five and seven years — however, were not chained, she added.

During the journey, the military personnel, a majority of whom were men, were “accommodating” to them when they had food, she admitted. The handcuffs were finally removed once the flight landed in Amritsar. “For three days, we were in shackles, unaware of where the plane had stopped as we were told that we’d be released at another border. We didn’t realise that they were taking us back to India,” she added. In Delhi, MEA officials said: “The matter was taken up in New Delhi and also Washington DC with the US.” The standard operating procedures (SOPs) for such deportation flights lay down that women and children shall not be shackled.

Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said: “We are aware of the SOPs on the use of restraints and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar had described the same. Notwithstanding that, if any specific issues are brought to our notice, we do make our concerns known to the US. This kind of treatment can perhaps be avoided and these are the conversation we are having with the US.”

Jaishankar had made a suo motu statement in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday addressing the issue of handcuffing and shackling of deported persons in flights. The minister had said: “Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) of the US has the SOP effective from 2012 which provides for use of restraints”. The ICE has informed that women and children are not restrained. “For toilet breaks deportees are unrestrained,” he had said.

This comes as another woman deportee had claimed she was handcuffed and her legs chained during the military flight. Lovepreet Kaur from Kapurthala district told a vernacular newspaper that she was restrained.