Canada refused to give entry to a retired Central Reserve Police Force officer last week, allegedly because they considered that he had served an administration that engaged in “terrorism, systematic or gross human rights violations, or genocide”, Hindustan Times reported on Tuesday.
The Ministry of External Affairs responded to the report, saying that this characterisation of the CRPF is “completely unacceptable”, adding that it had taken up the incident with Canada, ANI reported.
Tejinder Singh Dhillon, who had retired as inspector general of police in 2010, was stopped at the Vancouver airport with his wife on May 18 and questioned for up to seven hours, the report said. He was “declared inadmissible” under a part of the country’s Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Dhillon was also given a document that said he had been a senior official in the government that “in the opinion of the Minister, engages or has engaged in terrorism, systematic or gross human rights violations, or genocide, a war crime or a crime against humanity”.
Immigration officials later issued a second report that had no mention of any human rights violations by the government. However, it still said Canada could not allow Dhillon entry to the country because he had worked for a force that had “committed widespread and systemic human rights abuses, for example torture, arbitrary detention, murder and sexual assault”.
Dhillon, 67, told HT that he has visited Canada several times, while he had served in the CRPF and afterwards, and that he holds a visa that is valid until 2024. The publication said Global Affairs Canada had not responded when they contacted it for a comment.
The report added that Dhillon claimed Vancouver immigration officials had behaved with him in an “unreasonable and indecent manner”. He was questioned for several hours and given a break because a former politician had intervened. He was then questioned again the next day, after which authorities cancelled his visa and deported him. Dhillon’s wife also returned with him.
India’s ties with Canada might be even more strained after this incident. In April, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh had called the country’s defence minister a “Khalistani sympathiser” and had refused to meet him during a trip to India. India had also put down an Ontario resolution that had called the 1984 anti-Sikh riots “genocide”.
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