Punjab Police to crack down on travel agents sending youth abroad through ‘donkey route’

“Since the deportees person conscionable travel backmost aft a gruelling formation and galore are slumber and food-deprived, we are giving them immoderate clip to recover. But we shall beryllium speaking to each 1 of them and mapping retired the mode successful which they arrived astatine the US borders and done which question cause successful India oregon Punjab,” said the elder officer, who did not privation to beryllium named.

As galore arsenic 30 radical from Punjab were among the 104 deported Indian nationals connected the US subject C-17 craft which landed astatine the Amritsar airdrome Wednesday afternoon.

Police officers besides said they don’t cognize whether others who would beryllium deported from the US volition besides get successful subject aircraft. “We bash not person immoderate accusation successful this regard. It could beryllium that this formation was successful a subject craft to enactment up an ‘effect’ by the US authorities and different flights whitethorn beryllium successful chartered civilian flights,” an serviceman said.

What drives radical to instrumentality the ‘donkey’ route

The serviceman said that an estimated 20,000 Indians are apt to beryllium deported from the US successful the coming days, and that galore among these volition beryllium from Punjab. “With each amerciable migrant having paid astir Rs 30 lakh to the question agents, the full amerciable ‘donkey route’ concern is worthy respective 100 crores, if not thousands,” said the officer.

Most of the younker from Punjab who question amended opportunities overseas question done these unauthorised and unsafe “donkey routes”, and it has been a important contented successful Punjab and Haryana successful caller years. It involves a complex, often perilous travel undertaken by migrants to circumvent ineligible migration channels, chiefly aiming for destinations similar the US, the UK, and Canada. These journeys are fraught with dangers including quality trafficking, imprisonment, exploitation, and adjacent decease owed to harsh upwind conditions oregon borderline enforcement actions.

Police officers said that their investigations person revealed that the superior drivers for this unsafe migration are precocious unemployment rates and constricted economical opportunities. The agrarian crisis, coupled with a deficiency of concern growth, has besides near galore young radical looking for greener pastures abroad, they said.

“There’s a taste aspiration successful Punjab towards migration, fuelled by the occurrence stories of those who person made it abroad, contributing to a societal unit to question planetary opportunities,” said different officer.

A web of question agents

The “donkey” way involves aggregate countries, often starting with a tourer visa to a Schengen state oregon a visa-free destination similar Nicaragua. From there, migrants are smuggled done assorted routes, which mightiness see crossing borders illegally, hiding successful trucks oregon containers, oregon walking done forests oregon deserts.

The constabulary said the question agents often usage contacts successful different countries and the communal “donkey” routes see transiting done Russia, Belarus, and into the EU, oregon from South America via Ecuador oregon Nicaragua, aiming to scope Mexico for an amerciable introduction into the US.

“Travel agents, often operating nether the guise of ineligible question agencies successful Punjab, are cardinal facilitators successful this migration. They connection to put the full travel for hefty fees, promising harmless transition to the desired country, often with misleading assurances astir the legality of the process,” said a constabulary officer.

They added that these agents are suspected of providing forged documents oregon misinformation astir employment opportunities overseas and that they run done a web of sub-agents, ensuring last-mile connectivity to imaginable migrants adjacent successful distant villages.

“Agents complaint tremendous sums, sometimes moving into lakhs of rupees, with payments structured successful tranches astatine antithetic stages of the journey. This concern exemplary is lucrative but besides leads to important fiscal nonaccomplishment for families erstwhile migrants are caught oregon deported,” said the officer.

Both the Punjab and Haryana governments person been attempting to curb the signifier of “donkey routes”. For instance, the Haryana Registration and Regulation of Travel Agents Bill, 2024, aims to modulate question agents strictly, with penalties similar imprisonment, fines, and spot confiscation for those recovered blameworthy of facilitating amerciable migration.

There person been instances of crackdowns successful the past connected these agents, with ineligible actions similar FIRs being filed against them, though enforcement remains challenging owed to the clandestine quality of these operations.

Returnees oregon those caught often look societal stigma, which tin pb to intelligence trauma and further marginalisation wrong their communities and often they are reluctant to record complaints.