Deportee gets passport after 14 years!

Sunday, 29/04/2012

http://www.punjabnewsline.com/content/deportee-gets-passport-after-14-years/44821

A man from a Jalandhar village was deported from Germany way back in 1997 but got his passport last week, that too after he wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Union Minister of External Affairs S.M. Krishna.

His crime: He sought a political asylum in Germany but his request was denied. As a consequence he was deported to India and barred for five years from seeking a fresh passport.

This is not an isolated case in this Doaba belt where foreign-crazy men, and women, fly abroad every month to seek a better living for themselves and their families back home. At the same time foreign countries also deport scores of Indian nationals every month for serious and not-so-serious crimes, ranging from overstaying in their countries on visitor visas to working without work-permits. With a majority of them having clean records in their home country, a major chunk of Indians is just a victim of circumstances.

It goes without saying that many Indian youth are languishing in foreign jails thanks to unscrupulous manpower agents in Punjab and elsewhere in the country. Some of the youth are even deported as soon as they set foot on foreign land, for inappropriate travel documents. Worse still, some are arrested and imprisoned for indefinite periods.

Indian youth go abroad in search of greener pastures and try every means to get a permanent status in a foreign land. In order to fulfil their dollar-dream they even risk their lives. But surely they do send back valuable foreign exchange. In the process some are caught working illegally and put in jails abroad.

Deportees’ tale of woes start the very moment they land in their country of birth. Since most of them come home on Emergency Certificates (travel documents) in the absence of valid passports, they become easy fodder for corrupt immigration officials at major international airports in India.

Pitiably, they are already a harassed and haggard lot after spending months in foreign jails. To add insult to their injury, they are detained and harassed at the airport. Some of them are even threatened with ‘dire consequences’ by immigration authorities if they fail of grease their palms.

Agreed they break immigration laws of a foreign land and should be punished. But the question is as to why are they harassed by Indian Government officials when they haven’t broken any Indian law? There are hundreds of Indian youth who are rotting in Indian jails for no fault of theirs.

Once they are home and join their families, getting a fresh passport to travel abroad and joining their other loved ones living overseas become a distant dream for them. They face lot many problems in getting police clearance. Getting a passport for a deportee is simply next to impossible at Regional Passport Offices (RPOs) in India. Most of the time they have to seek the help of agents who exploit them to the hilt by demanding hefty sums of money on the plea that they (agents) have to grease the palms of officials in concerned RPO.

The Ministry of External Affairs should look into the matter. Clear guidelines should be issued to Indian immigration and police authorities so that innocents are not harassed.