‘Glad she is back home safe’: From Vadodara to Mehsana, how families in Gujarat welcomed those who returned from US

“We are a simple family. She had dreamed of a better life and initiated the process accordingly… We do not know what went wrong,” says the farmer from Padra town in Vadodara district.

The deportees from Gujarat, among 104 Indians who landed in Amritsar on Wednesday, arrived at the Ahmedabad airport early on Thursday. From here, they were escorted by the police to the nearest police station in their respective districts where their relatives were waiting to take them home.

The Padra woman’s mother says, “We were worried all this while since we were unable to get in touch with her (during the deportation period). As far as we know, she did nothing illegal. We don’t know what went wrong.”

Like a number of deportees, the woman had made her way to the US only a few weeks ago.

“She went there early in January and had told us that everything was ‘in order’. We remained out of touch for several days and it was only the other day that we actually heard about her return due to deportation. We are just glad that she is back home safe,” says the mother as she tries to make sense of the situation with district police teams, mediapersons and curious onlookers surrounding the family home.

Even as the parents are relieved, the woman is inconsolable.

Her father says the deportation process has left his daughter “traumatised”. “She has been crying since the day she was able to contact us from the detention centre where Indians were kept for a few days. They were not given access to communication and we had not heard from her… They were treated like criminals. We will ensure she recovers from this mental state.”

The woman, escorted by a team of the Vadodara district police from Ahmedabad airport, was reunited with her brother who was waiting for her at the Padra police station on Thursday morning. Vadodara District Superintendent of Police, Rohan Anand, tells The Indian Express, “We dispatched a team of the district police to bring her back safely. We have not questioned her right now; once she settles down, we will approach her.”

Another deportee from Central Gujarat, who returned early on Thursday morning, says the “future is bleak”. A relative of the man, in his early 20s, told this newspaper that his family is now burdened by heavy debt taken to send him across using the “Dunki route”. The relative, on condition of anonymity, says, “The family was shocked when he was deported… it appears that he could not even get to the US and was caught during the cross-over. They had taken a loan of Rs 40 lakh and even sold their land in their native village in Gandhinagar district to collect Rs 75 lakh to pay the agents. The last installment of the payment was also made in the first week of January…”

‘Nothing to come back to’

The relative says the man had begun his journey to the US in October, pit-stopping in at least five countries in South America. “The deportation has left the family with nothing to look forward to. Like him, there were at least three other families (in the flight), who were distraught that they had nothing to come back to India to,” says the relative of the man from Central Gujarat. “He told us that throughout the flight, the deportees were depressed and silent… They have faced humiliation… Most of them could not even have their meals or feed their children as they were handcuffed. They could not even use the washroom… the pathways were blocked with backpacks.”

The returnees included a woman who had apparently told her family that she had gone for a Europe tour.

Speaking to The Indian Express, the sarpanch of the village in Mehsana, says that the 28-year-old woman was escorted to her residence by the police. While the sarpanch says the family does not wish to speak to the media, he shares that even her family does not know how the woman, who had left for Europe with her two friends, had reached the US.

In Surat’s Dindoli, businessman Praful Patel spent most part of his Thursday fielding questions from the media over the purchase of his apartment from one of the deportees, who had allegedly sold him the flat to be able to fund his family’s “US dream”. The deportee from North Gujarat, who earlier worked as a diamond polisher, had sold his house to Patel about a year ago.

Patel says he had purchased the flat through a local broker and has no “personal relations” with the previous owner. “He told us that the family was planning to move abroad but we do not have any details. We only know they were a family of four,” he adds.

How the deportees were brought back to the state

On Thursday morning, a special domestic flight, carrying 33 people from Gujarat, including eight children, landed at Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Airport in Ahmedabad at 6.30 am. By 5 am, police teams from all these districts had already assembled at the airport. No family members of the deportees were present at the airport following assurance by the police that officers would bring them back to their respective hometowns.

On Thursday, a release from the Gujarat government stated that Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel kept a close watch on the process of bringing back the Gujarat residents from Amritsar even as Minister of State for Home Affairs, Harsh Sanghvi, supervised the operation, including the arrangements made by the police department, ensuring “sensitivity and empathy”. The release said that nodal officers were appointed in each district to ensure the safe homecoming of the deportees, deploying government vehicles to take them home from the airport.

The release also stated that “a deputy SP-level officer” of the Gujarat Police Department had been deployed at Amritsar airport, as per the directions of the Director General of Police (DGP) Vikas Sahay, to ensure smooth coordination in completing the immigration clearance and verification of the 33 Gujarat residents. The deportees from the state were then taken to New Delhi from where they were flown to Ahmedabad.