US Sikh journo who made docus on agri stir, Covid deported on landing at IGI | India News

JALANDHAR: American Sikh journalist Angad Singhwho has made documentary films on the farmers’ agitation against farm laws and India’s Covid managementwas deported upon landing at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport on Wednesday evening.
Singh works as a documentary producer for the US-based website Vice News, which has a focus on Asia. He had arrived to meet his family in Punjab but was put on the next flight back to New York.
No reason was provided by the authorities for deporting Singh, claimed his mother Gurmeet Kaur, a writer who has worked to revive Punjabi folk tales and authored a book on human rights activist late Jaswant Singh Khalra.

“My son, an American citizen who travelled 18 hours to Delhi to visit us in Punjab, was deported. Put in 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,” she wrote on her Facebook wall with a picture of her son.
Singh has made critical films on right-wing politics. One of his documentaries, titled ‘India’s Covid Hell’, was about the issues and management of the pandemic.
Kaur further wrote: “It is the love for his Motherland that they can’t stand. It is the cutting edge reporting of #ViceNews that gets to them. He is 6’5” tall. His back hurts from riding long rides in such small spaces. He must be wanting to lay down. I wish you Chardi Kala (stay in good spirits) my boy.”
“It’s 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 for it. I am comforting your back. See you in the land of the free,” Kaur said in her post.
In her FB post, Kaur recalled a similar incident she had witnessed years ago. “When I flew to America for the first time — PanAm flight from Bombay to New York — I saw a Sikh boy about my age (I was 22 then) handcuffed and being taken away to be deported to India. My heart tore. I spoke to him from a distance to comfort him. He said he didn’t know the reason. He was tired of sitting down in the plane and all he wanted to do was to lay down — his back hurt so bad. I wished him Chardi Kala,” she wrote.