Chandigarh, Feb 7 Haryana Minister Anil Vij has said like the US, India should also think about deporting "lakhs and crores" of illegal immigrants in the country.
He added that every country has a right to deport illegal immigrants and US President Donald Trump has not made any mistake in doing so.
His remark came after 104 illegal Indian immigrants from various states were deported in a US military aircraft that landed at the Amritsar airport on Wednesday.
"Such people are born somewhere else, but we feed them. Why? They should go where they were born. We should also form a policy in this regard, and they should be sent back to their respective countries," Minister Vij added.
Meanwhile, a senior official in the state police department said, "An investigation has been initiated against the travel agents as the deportees have alleged that they were promised a 'green card', citizenship and regularisation, once they land in the United States."
However, the official said that they were sent back, and action would be taken against the agents based on the complaints received.
All the cases will be supervised by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) under Ambala Range IGP Sibash Kabiraj, which was constituted in 2023 by the then Home Minister Vij, to tackle rising cases of "kabootarbazi".
This was the first such batch of Indians deported by the Trump government as part of a crackdown it resolved to carry out when it was sworn in last month.
"If a person goes to another country illegally, then that nation has every right to expel them. And Trump did not make any mistake," said Vij in response to Punjab's NRI Affairs Minister Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal's appeal to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to speak with the US President regarding deportation.
"I say take a cue from it. Lakhs of people are illegal in this country... They were born somewhere else, but we feed them. They should be sent back to their respective countries," he added.
Of the 104 deportees who arrived at the Amritsar airport on Wednesday, 33 each were from Haryana and Gujarat, 30 from Punjab, three each from Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, and two from Chandigarh.
Punjab Minister Dhaliwal on Wednesday sought the intervention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, urging him to speak to his "friend" US President Trump regarding the deportation of Indians.
In a separate development, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Thursday sharply reacted to the handcuffing and chaining of Indians. He also condemned the Haryana government for transporting them in prisoner vans from Amritsar.
Taking on X, Mann expressed his anger at the way the deportees were treated after arriving in India.
He added that instead of applying ointment to the wounds of Indians deported from America who are mentally and economically devastated, the BJP lead-Haryana government taking them in police prisoner vans is like rubbing salt in the wounds.
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