Sikhs deported from US forced to remove turbans

As the latest deportation flights from the US landed in India over the weekend, authorities receiving them at the airport discovered that at least 24 Sikh men had been forced to remove their turbans while in detention.

For baptized Sikh men, uncut hair bound in a turban is a mark of faith. To add to the indignity, US authorities had discarded the cloth used to bind their heads into the trash.

“It was very painful watching turbans being thrown into a dustbin,” 21-year-old deportee Davinder Singh told reporters later.

Representatives of the top Sikh religious body, the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), who were at the airport in Amritsar late Saturday night to receive the deportees, scrambled to provide appropriate head coverings with the help of airport staff when some were seen arriving with bare heads. For the Sunday flight, the SGPC representatives came prepared with head coverings for the new arrivals.

The SGPC organized a sacred meal and a renewed baptism for the men who had faced this indignity to their faith.

“Removing of turbans of Sikhs is a disregard of religious freedom and an affront against human rights”, the director of Sikh advocacy organization United Sikhs told the Punjabi outlet Babushahi.

The reason given by US authorities for the removal of turbans, 21-year-old Jaswinder Singh told the Indian Express, was that the turban could potentially be used as a makeshift noose, and they did not want to incur the risk of suicide among the group. A typical Sikh turban is a six-yard-long fabric. 

Some deportees described further inhumane treatment during the detention. One of the men, Daljit Singh, told reporters that they had been handcuffed with their legs in chains. They were subjected to cold temperatures with “wafer thin” blankets, and inadequate food, another detainee, Davinder Singh, said to reporters. In addition, Jaswinder Singh said to reporters that they were not allowed to stand up to stretch for the duration of the 66-hour flight.

In response to this mistreatment, Pritpal Singh, founder of the American Sikh Caucus Committee, wrote a joint letter along with other Sikh bodies addressed to Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem, urging her to remedy procedures for future deportation flights.

The letter was written on the morning of Feb. 18. Just a couple hours after, the White House posted a video reveling in the mistreatment of deportees. The video, titled “ASMR,” showed unidentified men being bound in chains. “ASMR” is a term that describes a pleasurable tingling of the spine upon hearing certain evocative sounds. 

“Haha wow,” Elon Musk, Tesla CEO and Trump ally posted in response. 

Amid Trump’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants, three military flights of deportees have landed in India, all at the Amritsar airport in the northwestern state of Punjab. The first, on Feb. 4, brought 104 deportees. Last weekend, 116 arrived by the first flight on Saturday night, and a further 112 arrived on Sunday. 

Opposition leaders in India slammed prime minister Narendra Modi, who has made much of his personal relationship with Trump, over the treatment of deportees. 

The leader of the opposition Shiromani Akali Dal party that represents Sikh interests urged Modi to take up the matter with Trump, according to the New Indian Express.

“The country must stand up for the dignity and rights of its citizens”, he said.