US citizen and journalist Angad Singh was allegedly deported from Delhi airport on Wednesday night.
A family member said Angad, who covers South Asia, was sent back to the US because of his work. He said Angad’s recent works include a documentary on the Shaheen Bagh protest, the epicenter of a resistance to the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), and the deadly second wave of Covid in India, which also received an Emmy nomination.
His request for a visa as a journalist to make a documentary on the condition of Dalits in India was rejected recently.
His family members in Punjab said Angad, a documentary producer with Vice News in America, had landed in Delhi at 8.30pm for a family reunion but was deported back because of his work.
Sources in the Union home ministry refused to comment on allegations by Angad’s family. “We do not share operational matters with the media,” said an immigration official.
Angad’s mother Gurmeet Kaur said in a Facebook post that her son had travelled 18 hours to Delhi to visit family in Punjab but was put on the next flight back to New York.
“They didn’t give a reason. But we know it is his award-winning journalism that scares them. It is the stories he did and the stories he is capable of. It is the love for his Motherland that they can’t stand. It is the cutting edge reporting of Vice News that gets to them,” she said.
“He is 6.5 tall. His back hurts from riding long rides in small spaces. He must be wanting to lie down. I wish you Chardi Kala my boy. It is not easy to be a Sikh, a Gursikh on top, a journalist, a warrior of truth and justice. Speaking truth has a price. We must
pay it. I am comforting your back. See you in the land of free.”
Last month independent Kashmiri journalist Aakash Hassan had complained that immigration authorities atDelhi airport prevented him from flying to Sri Lanka for work, the second such instance within a month when a Kashmiri journalist was denied permission to travel abroad.
Pulitzer-winning Kashmiri photojournalist Sanna Irshad Mattoo had alleged that she was prevented by immigration officials in Delhi from flying to Paris to receive a prestigious grant but did not tell her the reason.
Sanna, 26, who became anathema to the Right wing since she was awarded the Pulitzer on April 9 for her coverage of the second wave of Covid in India, portrayals of whose unchecked devastation had embarrassed the Narendra Modi government internationally.
