‘No Infosys employee apprehended in the US’: CEO Salil Parekh dismisses viral ICE claims

Infosys CEO Salil Parekh has clarified that no employee of the IT firm was apprehended or deported by the United States.

Infosys CEO Salil Parekh has clarified that no employee of the IT firm was apprehended or deported by the officials of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (US) upon entry to the United States. Parekh’s clarification came one day after a post going viral on X claimed an Infosys employee was “picked up” by ICE agents in the US.

Infosys CEO’s clarification

Infosys CEO and Managing Director Salil Parekh says no Infosys employee was apprehended by the US (Reuters)

Parekh did, however, say that an Infosys employee was detained upon entry to the US and sent back to India.

Speaking at the company’s Q3 earnings conference on January 14, the CEO and MD of Infosys clarified, “No Infosys employee has been apprehended by any US authority. A few months ago, one of our employees was denied entry into US and was sent back to India.”

What did the viral post claim?

In a post shared online on January 13, X user Chetan Anantharamu claimed that he heard about an Infosys employee from Mysuru who was working on-site in the United States. The said employee was allegedly “picked up” by ICE agents, given two hours to pack his possessions, and told that he had two choices — he could either go to jail or fly back to India.

The X user claimed that this Infosys employee faced further humiliation inside the flight — an in-flight announcement was made warning “that he should not be allowed to escape once flight lands in Frankfurt.”

“Again in Frankfurt, was escorted till his seat for the flight back to Bangalore & again public announcement made that he should not get up from his seat till flight takes off,” Anantharamu said.