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The central government told the Delhi High Court on Wednesday that British anthropologist Filippo Osella appears in the “highest category” of blacklisted persons. Osella (65) moved the high court seeking records related to his deportation from Thiruvananthapuram airport in March, and quashing it as “arbitrary and illegal”.
A single judge bench of Justice Yashwant Varma was hearing the petition wherein the counsel appearing for the central government submitted that there is sufficient material to blacklist Osella and deport him back to the United Kingdom. He submitted that Osella’s name appeared in the “highest category” of blacklisted persons. The Court thereafter granted the Centre four weeks time to file its counter affidavit, listing the matter on February 23, 2023.
Osella, a professor of Anthropology and South Asian Studies at the University of Sussex, has also sought a declaration that his deportation was arbitrary, unreasonable and illegal. He was deported from Thiruvananthapuram on March 23. At the last hearing, the HC had granted time to the Centre’s counsel to seek instructions on Osella’s petition.
The petition states that Osella was treated as a “terrorist or some kind of hardened criminal” by authorities in India when he “was escorted back and bundled into the same aircraft in which he had arrived”.
“The petitioner was in complete shock as he had a valid research visa issued by the Government of India. Once the petitioner asked the immigration supervisor and officers as to why he was being deported, the petitioner was refused any explanation. In fact, the immigration officers gave no reasons. The deportation/situation was spinning out of control with the potential intervention and/or threat of use of force by the security officers,” reads the petition.
His plea further states that he was not even allowed to get in touch with his friends or colleagues in Kerala or India. “The immigration officers behaved in a remarkably inhuman way, even when the petitioner explained that he was just an academic and teacher, who had been doing research in India for more than thirty years,” read the petition, adding he was even denied access to life-saving medicines from his luggage.
The petition also states that Foreign Regional Registration Officer, Thiruvananthapuram, on March 29 had sent a letter to the Cochin University of Science and Technology seeking “certain clarification” on Osella’s research. The plea terms such actions as “afterthoughts” post deportation.
Osella is a specialist in Kerala society and has conducted extensive research for over 30 years in the state, mapping its social and cultural transformation.
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