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Midnight raid poses many questions, whereabouts of deported man unknown

Sonia Chopra

The family of a man who was arrested a day after his deportation hearing in Toronto are worried about his fate as police and law enforcement have given them no information about his whereabouts. The family has been told that the man, who had sought refuge in Canada, has been deported to India but his relations in India have not seen him or heard from him.

On Thursday, February10, Harjinder Singh, 34, who had failed to get political asylum, voluntarily walked into the immigration offices to plead his case. He was told he would receive their decision in a letter, his family says. The next day at midnight, armed police and immigration officials broke down the door to his cousin Manjit's Singh' s home and arrested Harjinder Singh.

The officers also handcuffed Manjit Singh, 38, a taxi driver who has been in Canada for 15 years and his wife Narinderjeet Kaur, 32, and another guest who was staying with them. Singh said the twenty masked police officers had flashlights mounted on their rifles.

"At first, we thought we were being robbed and we were scared but we got even more scared when we saw the police arresting us and shouting," said Manjit Singh.

He also said that his four daughters Aatamprakash, 8 1/2, Jyotprakash, 6 1/2, Amritprakash, 4, and Hemantprakash, 1 1/2 are so traumatized by the events they refuse to sleep in their own house. They spend the nights at a relative's house.

A spokeswoman for the Peel Region police Wendy Sims confirmed that the arrest was made but referred all questions to immigration authorities, saying that the police were merely "helping them with executing warrants."

Manjit Singh, who is considering the next course of action, which may include a lawsuit against the law enforcement authorities, is focused on the fate of his cousin, a poor farmer from Punjab.

"We were not allowed to meet him, we looked for him in jails, in immigration detention centers and no-one would help us or give us any information. Finally they told us to come on Sunday at a jail," he said.

"When we reached there, they informed us that he had been deported. We called Delhi, where our families are and they burst into tears and cried and screamed for the first few minutes. They rushed to the airport but he isn't there. We simply don't know where he is."

Citizenship and Immigration Canada spokeswoman Giovanna Gatti did not return calls seeking comments but in Toronto Star she confirmed that Singh had been arrested but would not say whether he had been deported or discuss the nature of the arrest.

Gatti also said that immigration officials sometimes request police assistance in arresting people if they fear violence or if they believe the individual is a flight risk.

Singh is bitter about the treatment meted out to his family. "If they wanted to arrest him why didn't they do it while he was at the hearing? Why did they have to come at night?" he asked.

He also said that his cousin had been on refugee status for two years and had fled India, where he was the only son and brother of six sisters because he was brutally beaten by police who suspected him of being involved in a Sikh militant group and he feared more arrests and beatings.

"This is what we expect of the police in India. They beat you up first and talk later. But now I realize that the Canadian police are also becoming like that," Singh said.

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