Illegal immigration by young Indians to countries such as the US, the UK, and Canada has come under spotlight as a plane carrying suspected victims of human trafficking was rerouted to India. The flight, which made headlines last week, was on its way to Nicaragua after being detained in France.

“Donkey Flight” has become the catchall term for such illegal movements — a corruption of the Punjabi work “dunki” meaning to hop from one place to another.

Every year more than 20,000 young men and women from Punjab attempt irregular migration, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime hjhad said in a report back in 2009.

As the intercepted flight indicated, the number has only grown. While no consolidated data exists given the secrecy exercised, there are other indicators.

Since 2012, the Punjab Police have issued over 10 lakh Police Clearance Certificates (PCC) — a spike that raises aspirations even among those of the young generation who have no means to move abroad.  

A Special Investigation Team has handled about 645 such cases, resulting in 518 arrests, Anil Vij, the Home Minister Haryana has said on Saturday.

The process is not easy. Apart from the high financial cost, there is every risk of being thrown into jail at any stage.

“My agent had promised to send me to Italy for 12 lakhs,” said Rahul, a resident of Haryana’s Kurukshetra, recalling his bid to migrate a few months ago.

“On April 8, they sent me first to Dubai and then to Egypt and was told that I will be sent to Libya from where I will have a direct flight,” he said.

Though he managed to reach Libya, he soon found the cost was too great — landing in jail shortly after.

One day he suffered a heart attack in jail. Thought to be dead, he was thrown on the sand outside.

“The people in the jail protested seeing me like this and tried to break the jail. Then I was taken to the hospital. As soon as I came to my senses, I was taken by the people of the Embassy and after making a white passport, I was brought to India,” he said.

Many others are not lucky enough to make it back.

Shiv Kumar, a resident of Kaithal, sent his son to Portugal mortgaging his ancestral land. For the last seven months, he has been running from pillar to post to get his son back.

Though a police case has been lodged against the agent who sent his son abroad, there is no clue to the young man’s whereabouts.

“Till date, we do not know where our son is. We last spoke to him on June 8. Two agents got bail and are now on the run… I have appealed to many places… lodged a complaint on the government’s Madad App but no help came. We came to know that a boat on way from Libya to Italy sank,” he added, breaking down.

Many others, like Malkeet from Kaithal district, the journey proved fatal.
His family got to know of his death from a video that had gone viral.

NDTV approached many travel agents seeking details. Only one person agreed to speak on condition of anonymity.

“There are two kind of illegal routes through which we send people abroad. One is through the forest route which is less expensive — around 30-40 lakh… these days Turkey is the transit point… From Turkey a visa for Costa Rica is obtained…then to Panama,” he said.

The payment has to be made in tranches at every phase — Rs 10 lakh has to be paid in Turkey, another 10 lakh in Costa Rica and final payments have to be made in two tranches at the Mexico border.

In the second category, the travel is by air, which costs around Rs 40 to 50 lakh and the people are sent by air through any European country.

Even so, dozens of Indians are taking to social media to document their journey, offering tips, route suggestions and risk assessments.

After the flight returned from Bangalore, both Punjab and Haryana have cracked down on fake agents. Punjab has formed a Special Investigation Team to probe the issue.  Haryana said it already has one, which has been going after the fraudulent agents.

“The state government will bring a bill in the winter session of the state assembly to regulate immigration agents and agencies,” said Anil Vij.

Japan has been hit since Monday by 155 earthquakes including a 7.6-magnitude jolt and another over 6, the Japan Meteorological Office said.

Most of the quakes had a magnitude greater than 3 and while the strength has gradually moderated, six strong jolts were still felt early Tuesday, the JMA said.

At least six people died in a major earthquake that struck central Japan on New Year’s Day, triggering tsunami waves over a metre high, damaging homes and sparking a major fire that wreaked destruction overnight, authorities said Tuesday.

The scale of the damage from Monday’s quake was still emerging, with news footage showing toppled buildings, sunken boats at a port, countless charred homes, and locals without power in freezing overnight temperatures.

The US Geological Survey (USGS) said the quake, which struck Ishikawa prefecture on the main island of Honshu had a magnitude of 7.5.

Japanese authorities put it at 7.6 and said it was one of more than 90 quakes that had rocked the region as of 1:00 am Tuesday (1600 GMT Monday).

Waves at least 1.2 metres (four feet) high hit the port of Wajima on Monday, and a series of smaller tsunamis were reported elsewhere, but warnings of much larger waves proved unfounded.

Aerial news footage showed sunken boats at the fishing port of Suzu, with at least one washed onto shore, and devastation from a major fire in Wajima.

Around 32,700 households in the region remained without power on Tuesday, the local energy provider said.

Tens of thousands of people had been ordered to evacuate, according to the fire and disaster management agency, cited by Kyodo. About 1,000 people were staying at a military base, the defence ministry said.

“I instructed (emergency workers) to reach the area as soon as possible by using whatever means available,” Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said late Monday after a disaster response meeting.

“It is very cold now. I issued an instruction to deliver necessary supplies like water, food, blankets, heating oil, gasoline, fuel oil, by using planes or ships,” Kishida told reporters.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

More than four years after the historic Ayodhya verdict of the Supreme Court, Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud on Monday said the five-judges, who ruled in favour of construction of a Ram temple by a trust at the disputed site, had unanimously decided there will be no authorship ascribed to the judgment.

On November 9, 2019, settling a fractious issue that went back more than a century, a five-judge bench headed by the then CJI Ranjan Gogoi had paved the way for construction of the temple and ruled that an alternative five-acre plot will be found for a mosque in the holy town in Uttar Pradesh.

In an exclusive interview with PTI, CJI Chandrachud, who was part of the constitution bench, candidly spoke on the issue of anonymity and said, when the judges sat together, as they do before a pronouncement, it was unanimously decided that this will be a “judgment of the court”.

He was replying to the query as to why the name of the author judge was not made public.

“When the five-judge bench sat to deliberate on the judgment as we all do before a Judgment is pronounced, we all decided unanimously that this will be a judgment of the court. And, therefore, there was no authorship ascribed to any individual judge,” the CJI said.

“The case has a long history of conflict, of diverse viewpoints based on the history of the nation and all those who were part of the bench decided that this will be a judgment of the court. The court will speak through one voice and the idea of doing so was to send a clear message that all of us stood together not only in the ultimate outcome but in the reasons indicated in the judgment,” he said, adding “I will close my answer with that.” 

Delivering a unanimous verdict on the case that long polarised the country and frayed the secular tapestry of Indian society, the Supreme Court bench had said in 2019 that the faith of Hindus that Lord Ram was born at the site was undisputed, and he was symbolically the owner of the land.

Yet, it is also clear that the destruction of the 16th century three-domed structure by Hindu kar sevaks, who want to build a Ram temple there, was a wrong that “must be remedied,” the court had said.

It said it is not concerned with faith and belief and instead treated the case as a title dispute over land between three parties — the Sunni Muslim Waqf Board, the Nirmohi Akhara, a Hindu group, and the symbolic Lord Rama designated as Ram Lalla Virajman (the deity).

The judgment, running into 1,045 pages, was widely welcomed by Hindu politicians and groups, while the Muslim leadership said they will accept the verdict, even though they described it as flawed. Still, they called for peace and calm, and leaders across the political spectrum had noted that it was now time to move on.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)