India arrests and deports Canadian man in latest example of revived ‘blacklist’ for Sikhs: experts

A Mississauga, Ont., man says he was detained at the airport in Amritsar, India, on New Year’s Eve without food or medical care for 36 hours before Indian officials removed him from the country

Gurcharan Singh Banwait, 77, a Canadian citizen for nearly 50 years, says he often travels to India for his health charity International Punjabi Foundation, and never had a problem until his last trip.

“It was painful,” Banwait told CBC Toronto. “They put me in a room there, locked it and put two security guards with guns.”

Banwait, who recently underwent heart surgery and has a herniated spinal disc, said he was not given a place to lie down and the cold weather made his back pain worse. He also claims that he was not allowed to go to the laundries without assistance, and that an Indian official called him a “Khalistani”, a term used for supporters of Khalistan, a Sikh separatist movement.

“I feel embarrassed, insulted,” he said.

Those who have closely followed the disintegration of Canada-India relations in recent years say this is an example of a growing trend of India harassing and blacklisting Sikhs and journalists, raising concerns that the country uses visa as a tool for foreign interference.

The Mississauga man says he’s speaking out because he worries other Sikh Canadians may be similarly detained or blacklisted, but won’t know until after he’s bought an expensive ticket, traveled more than 14 hours around the globe and potentially be held in custody.

“Nobody listens to you. They’ll put you in jail and you’re gone,” Banwait said.

CBC Toronto sent several requests to the Indian consulate and the High Commission in Canada, as well as India’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Indian High Commission declined to comment on a phone call, while officials in New Delhi did not respond.

Global Affairs Canada is aware of the situation, but cannot intervene in immigration matters on behalf of Canadians, a spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

“Each country or territory decides who can enter or exit through its borders,” the statement said.

India monitors diaspora ‘with full force’: lawyer

For decades, India has used its central adverse list — better known as a blacklist — to mark a person as inadmissible to the country.

The number of Canadians on the blacklist has been increasing since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused the Indian government of playing a role in the 2023 killing of Canadian Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, according to Balpreet Singh, legal counsel and spokesperson for the World Sikh Organization Canada. .

A December investigation by Global News Revealed agents of Indian proxies asked Sikh Canadians to sign affidavits professing their “deep respect” for India in order to obtain a visa.

Indian diplomats and consular officials used their discretion to grant or withhold visas to pressure people to conduct surveillance or become informants, sources told CBC News last year.

“India using visas to manipulate people is foreign interference,” Singh said. “Having people here in Canada to do or not do certain things to get visas is just wrong.”

“It’s a practice that really needs to end.”

The Indian government has increasingly targeted individuals who criticize government policies or for association with movements such as Khalistan, according to Raman Sohi, an immigration lawyer in Vancouver.

“The Indian government has resources, they have means to monitor people outside India. They use those means with full force,” Sohi said.

India does not notify blacklisted people and often does not provide a reason, Sohi said.

“They can deny entry immediately,” he said. “They can arrest you … they can actually start prosecuting you there.”

Sohi says the ruling Hindu nationalist party under Prime Minister Narendra Modi is “trying to silence critics” and does not expect the problem to improve.

“They are very aggressive,” he said.

As for Banwait, it is not sure whether his Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) card which allows a holder of a multi-purpose, multiple-entry, lifetime visa is valid or not.

He acknowledges that his deportation could be due to his 1986 arrest on allegations related to a plot to bomb a flight, but says that is unlikely since he was acquitted and traveled to India without trouble in the following decades.

I suspect it was his attendance at a December event in Punjab on the history of the Sikh empire.

“Day and night I think: what did I do wrong? I did nothing,” he said.

He says he stops to think if he is permanently barred from entering his homeland and, if so, what it would mean for his hospital, property and charity in India, and his family members who want to visit him.

A blacklisted American journalist is taking the Indian government to court

Angad Singh, an American freelance journalist and producer, is on the blacklist.

He fought in court to know why his OCI was canceled and he was sent to New York from Delhi in 2022.

According to court documents, it was Singh’s job as an assistant producer on VICE’s award-winning documentary, “India Burning,” which was about India’s new anti-Muslim citizenship laws.

The Indian government views the story as “anti-national propaganda to defame the country,” according to court documents.

“What we are seeing is that (visas) are being weaponized against certain parts of the wider Indian diaspora, against certain minority groups, against those who might try to speak truth to power,” Singh said.

Singh is continuing his legal battle against the government’s decision in a Delhi high court.