Amritsar, Feb 15: A second batch of 119 illegal immigrants from the US, comprising 67 Punjabis, will land at Amritsar’s Sri Guru Ram Dass Jee International Airport on Saturday night in a special plane, officials said. Another flight of the deportees from the US is expected to reach here on February 16.

Earlier, a US military plane with 104 deportees landed in Amritsar on February 5.

Officials said besides 67 immigrants from Punjab, Saturday’s flight will have 33 people from Haryana, eight from Gujarat, three from Uttar Pradesh, two each from Goa, Maharashtra and Rajasthan and one each from Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir.

This will be the second batch of Indians deported by the Trump government as part of a crackdown. The plane is expected to land at the airport around 10 p.m. on Saturday.

The deportation of these individuals is part of a wider crackdown by US immigration authorities on those who either entered the country illegally or overstayed their visas.

Sources have revealed that deportations will continue on a bi-weekly basis, with similar flights bringing back Indian nationals in the coming weeks, until all undocumented immigrants are returned to their home countries.

The government of India, through diplomatic channels, continues to work on repatriating its nationals who are affected by such deportations.

While the process has caused distress for many families, the authorities emphasise that the deportations are part of the ongoing effort to address illegal immigration, and those who wish to return home will be facilitated.

With the ongoing crackdown, both the US and India are taking steps to address immigration challenges while ensuring their respective laws are upheld.

This deportation comes just a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi met US President Donald Trump and stressed the need to fight against the “ecosystem” that lures people from ordinary families with big dreams and promises and brings them to other countries as illegal immigrants.

“We are of the opinion that anybody who enters and lives in another country illegally, they have absolutely no legal right or authority to live in that country,” PM Modi said at a joint press conference with Trump in the White House on Thursday.

Opposing the move to land the next plane carrying deported Indians at the Amritsar airport, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Friday described it as a “conspiracy of the Union government to defame Punjab and Punjabis”.

Interacting with the media here, the Chief Minister said that despite Punjab being the food bowl and sword arm of India, the move to land the plane carrying deported Indians from the US “is just another attempt of the Government of India to tarnish the image of Punjab globally”.

Mann questioned the move of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) to choose Amritsar for landing this plane whereas there are hundreds of other airports in the country.

The Chief Minister said he has already raised this issue with the MEA and the Ministry of Home Affairs but hasn’t received any positive response from them.

He said that one plane had landed a few days back and now two more planes are being landed without any proper justification.

The Chief Minister said, “It is the moral responsibility of the MEA to explain why Punjab, especially Amritsar, has been chosen for this landing”.

He said despite the fact that a hostile neighbour is 40 kms away from Amritsar, an Army plane of the US is being landed here.

New Delhi: The leader of the opposition in Rajya Sabha and Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the President’s rule imposed in Manipur. Kharge said that suspending his own party’s government is a direct admission that it has failed the people of Manipur.

In a post on X, Kharge termed the President’s rule a constitutional ‘crisis’ in the state, claiming that the BJP’s MLAs are unwilling to accept the baggage of the government’s incompetence.

Further sharpening his attack on the BJP, he said that despite 11 years of rule at the centre and 8 years at the state, the central government imposed presidential rule in Manipur.

“It is your party that has been ruling at the Centre for 11 years. It is your party that was ruling Manipur for 8 years. It is the BJP that was responsible for maintaining law and order in the state. It is your government that is responsible for national security and border patrol,” Kharge said on X.

“The imposition of President’s rule by you, suspending your own party’s government, is a direct admission of how you failed the people of Manipur,” the Congress president stated.

“You have imposed President’s rule not because you wanted to, but because there is a constitutional crisis in the state, as none of your MLAs are willing to accept the baggage of your incompetence,” he added.

Taking a further dig at BJP’s “double engine’ government (government at the centre and state), he said, “Your double engine ran over the lives of the innocent people of Manipur!”

He pointed out the need to listen to the pain and trauma of the suffering people of Manipur.

“High time you now step in Manipur and listen to the pain and trauma of the suffering people and apologise to them. Do you have the courage of conviction?” he questioned.

He said that the people of the northeastern state will not forgive Prime Minister Modi and the BJP.

Meanwhile, security has been heightened in the capital city of Imphal on Friday in the wake of the president’s rule imposed in Manipur amid prolonged ethnic violence and political instability in the region.

President Droupadi Murmu imposed President’s Rule in Manipur on Thursday after receiving a report from the state governor.

The move comes days after N. Biren Singh resigned from his position as the Chief Minister of Manipur on February 9. His resignation came amid violence and political instability that had plagued the state for nearly two years.

The imposition of the President’s Rule can last up to six months, subject to parliamentary approval. During this period, the central government will oversee governance, and fresh elections may be called to elect a new assembly.

The unrest in Manipur primarily involved clashes between the majority Meitei community and the minority Kuki-Zomi tribes. Tensions escalated over disputes related to economic benefits, job quotas, and land rights. The violence resulted in hundreds of fatalities and displaced approximately 60,000 individuals.

New Delhi, Feb 14: The Centre is yet to file its counter affidavit to a clutch of petitions pertaining to the Places of Worship Act, 1991, though the Supreme Court is slated to hear on Monday the pleas challenging the validity of the contentious law, which prohibits the filing of a lawsuit to reclaim a place of worship or seek a change in its character from what prevailed on August 15, 1947.

As per the causelist published on the website of the apex court, a bench of CJI Sanjiv Khanna, Sanjay Kumar and K.V. Viswanathan will resume hearing the matter on February 17.

In an application filed before the apex court on January 21, the Committee of Management of Mathura’s Shahi Masjid Eidgah pleaded that the right of the Centre to file its reply in the matter should be closed. The application said that in an order passed on December 12, 2024, the apex court noticed that the Union government had not filed its reply to the petitions challenging the 1991 Act for over three years and directed that a common counter affidavit be filed by the Centre within four weeks.

The mosque committee said that the Union of India is “deliberately” not filing its counter affidavit with the intention to delay the hearing, and thereby, obstructing those who are opposing the challenge to the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991 in filing their respective written submissions, as the stand of the Centre would have a bearing on the same.

The Shahi Masjid Eidgah’s application contended that since the Supreme Court has fixed the date of hearing of the batch of petitions as February 17, “it would be in the interest of justice if the right of the Union of India to file its counter affidavit/ reply/pleadings/submissions is closed”.

In March 2021, a Bench headed by then Chief Justice of India (CJI) S.A. Bobde sought the Centre’s response to the plea filed by advocate Ashwini Upadhyay challenging the validity of certain provisions of the law, prohibiting the filing of a lawsuit to reclaim a place of worship or seek a change in its character from what prevailed on August 15, 1947.

The plea said, “The 1991 Act was enacted in the garb of ‘public order’, which is a State subject (Schedule-7, List-II, Entry-1) and ‘places of pilgrimages within India’ is also State subject (Schedule-7, List-II, Entry-7). So, the Centre can’t enact the Law. Moreover, Article 13(2) prohibits the State from making a law to take away fundamental rights but the 1991 Act takes away the rights of Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, and Sikhs, to restore their ‘places of worship and pilgrimages’, destroyed by barbaric invaders.”

It further added, “The Act excludes the birthplace of Lord Rama but includes the birthplace of Lord Krishna, though both are incarnations of Lord Vishnu, the creator and equally worshipped throughout the world, hence it is arbitrary.”

In an interim order passed on December 12, 2024, CJI Sanjiv Khanna-led Special Bench had ordered that no fresh suits would be registered under the Places of Worship Act in the country, and in the pending cases, no final or effective orders would be passed till further orders.

The CJI-Khanna bench had asked the Union government to file within four weeks its reply to the batch of petitions challenging the validity of the Places of Worship Act (Special Provisions), 1991.