BATHINDA: A 22-year-old Sikh from Punjab’s Ferozepur district has alleged religious discrimination and mental torture while detained in a US immigration centre before being deported. Jashandeep Singh of Baler village has claimed that he was barred from wearing his turban — an essential article of his faith — which was confiscated, though not discarded. Upon landing at Amritsar, the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) provided him with a new dastar (turban).
He left home almost three months ago on a tourist visa bound for Europe. From Nicaragua, he was smuggled to Honduras and then into the US via Mexico. After entering the US illegally, he was apprehended and placed in a detention facility, reducing to nought all of Rs 45 lakh his family had raised through loans to fund his journey. He said: “At the detention centre, they called us aliens and assigned us numbers. We were not harmed physically, but the mental torture was severe. Many Sikhs had their turbans tossed into dustbins.”
Jashandeep Singh was detained alongside migrants from Vietnam, China, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. He now alleges that these detainees were treated like hardened criminals, denied legal representation, and not given a chance to record statements. “We demand that the Indian govt address our treatment in US custody, particularly the religious discrimination we faced, and help recover the money our families lost,” he said. He was among 112 illegal immigrants deported aboard a US Air Force plane that landed in Amritsar on Sunday night. The Indian govt has not yet issued a response to the allegations.
