NEW DELHI (AP) 鈥 India鈥檚 Parliament was disrupted Thursday as opposition lawmakers protested the alleged mistreatment of 104 Indian immigrants deported by the United States.
A U.S. military plane carrying Indian migrants arrived Wednesday in a northern Indian city, the first such flight to the country as part of a .
Renuka Chowdhury, a lawmaker in the Congress party, said the deportees were 鈥渉andcuffed, had their legs chained and even struggled to use the washroom.鈥 Her colleague, Gaurav Gogoi, called it 鈥渄egrading.鈥
Parliament adjourned as the opposition chanted slogans and demanded a discussion about flights.
The protests mirrored concerns after a contentious on Jan. 25 prompted that country's government to seek an explanation for the 鈥渄egrading treatment鈥 of 88 passengers.
U.S. civilian authorities also shackle migrants by their ankles and wrists, but deportation flights to India are rare. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had three flights to the city of Amritsar last year, according to Witness at the Border, an advocacy group that tracks flight data.
The Trump administration's use of military aircraft for deportations to countries including Guatemala and Ecuador is a departure from previous practice, which relied on ICE's use of chartered and commercial planes.
Parliament Speaker Om Birla tried to calm the lawmakers, saying the transportation of the deportees was a matter of U.S. foreign policy and that the U.S. "also has its own rules and regulations.鈥
One deportee, Jaspal Singh, said the immigrants' handcuffs and leg chains were taken off only at the Amritsar airport in India.
Singh, 36, said they initially thought they were being taken to another camp in the U.S. and only found out about their deportation once on the plane. 鈥淭he flight was into 8-9 hours and an officer informed (us) that we are being deported鈥 to India, he said.
Opposition lawmakers, including Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, also protested outside the Parliament as they demanded a response from the government. Some wore handcuffs and carried placards that read: 鈥淗umans, not prisoners.鈥
鈥淚ndians deserve Dignity and Humanity, NOT Handcuffs,鈥 Gandhi wrote on the social media platform X.
Gandhi uploaded a video showing another deportee, Harvinder Singh, as saying they were handcuffed and their feet chained for 40 hours. "We were not allowed to move an inch from our seats. It was worse than hell,鈥 he said.
Later Thursday, India鈥檚 External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar told the Parliament's upper house that U.S. regulations have allowed for the use of restraints since 2012, both on military and civilian flights. He said the U.S. authorities have informed them that women and children are not restrained.
鈥淭here has been no change, I repeat, no change, from past procedure for the flight undertaken by the U.S.鈥 on Wednesday, he said.
Jaishankar said the government was engaging the U.S. authorities to 鈥渆nsure that the returning deportees are not mistreated."
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to visit Washington next week. Trump and Modi discussed immigration in a phone call last week and of fair bilateral trade and India buying more American-made security equipment.
A spokesperson at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi said enforcing immigration laws was critical for the country's national security and public safety.
"It is the policy of the United States to faithfully execute the immigration laws against all inadmissible and removable aliens,鈥 Christopher Elms said.
Indians were for illegally entering the U.S. on the 春色直播 border during a 12-month period that ended Sept. 30. That amounted to 60% of all arrests along that border and more than 10 times the number two years ago. Indians were arrested more than 25,000 times on the Mexican border during that time.
Jaishankar, India's External Affairs Minister, told Parliament that 15,668 Indian nationals have been deported back to India from the U.S. since 2009.
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Hussain reported from Srinagar, India.
