Hindustan Times (Chandigarh)

Deported from US, 145 Indians to land in Delhi today

- Anvit Srivastava

NEW DELHI: As many as 145 Indians deported from the US, mostly illegal immigrants and those who have violated visa norms, will arrive at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi Internatio­nal Airport on Wednesday morning by a special flight via Bangladesh. The flight also has on board some South Asian nationals, including Bangladesh citizens, airport officials aware of the matter said.

Most of these Indians allegedly entered the US over past years with the help of local internatio­nal agents who promised them entry into the country through illegal means, the officials said on condition of anonymity. Many of these Indians overstayed in the US in violation of visa norms.

“We have been informed the flight has some Bangladesh­i and Sri Lanka nationals on board. A majority of these deportees are expected to be aged between 20 and 35. It will reach New Delhi around 7 am via Bangladesh. All of them have been given emergency certificat­es which allows them only one-way journey from the US to India,” said one of the officials cited above said.

The deportees will be received at the terminal 3 (T3) of Delhi airport. “Their records will be maintained and some documentat­ion will take place. We have seen in the past that such agents charge ~10-15 lakh for facilitati­ng one person’s entry into the US. Once they are here, we will also try to track down such agents functionin­g from India. Since they are from different states, their concerned police will be informed if anything significan­t is found,” the official said. On October 23, the US deported 117 Indians in a similar manner. On October 18, as many as 311 Indian deportees, escorted by 60 security personnel, arrived in New Delhi in a Boeing 747 that took off from Toluca City internatio­nal airport in Mexico.

NEW DELHI: In Indian politics, fair play, morality and propriety are often used as terms of convenienc­e – to be preached more, and practised less.

The Maharashtr­a imbroglio, therefore, isn’t about broken pacts or promises. It’s as crass as a power tussle can get. We’ve seen glimpses of it in Karnataka, Goa and Meghalaya. Haryana witnessed it more recently.

Most post-poll pacts the media terms “unholy” are stratagem overriding ideology to overwhelm adversarie­s in the absence of decisive mandates. The route got traversed first in the formation of the short-lived Samyutka Vidhayak Dal (SVD) regimes in the 1960s. It acquired credence again in the 1980s, when Rajiv Gandhi rode on a sympathy wave after Indira Gandhi’s assassinat­ion to log a brute majority in the Lok Sabha.

The man who then returned to the drawing board was the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) LK Advani. To tame the leviathan the Congress was, he tied up with the rabble-rousing Shiv Sena. The “proximate” bunny hop he later did with the Marxists to prop up the post-bofors VP Singh government

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