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Laibar Singh now gets ready to
return to India
WSN Network
VANCOUVER: The
Paralysed Sikh Laibar Singh for whom the Sikh and the larger Indian
community as well as many activists fought to keep him from being
deported has finally given up all hope of getting refugee status and
will shortly be leaving Canada.
Laibar Singh, 48
years old, was ordered to be deported in 2006 but was paralysed and
then admitted to hospital.
Later, when the
authorites wanted to put him on the plane back to
India
in July 2006, he took refuge in a gurdwara in Abbotsford and then
escaped the same fate when the Indo-Canadian community got him a
60-day reprieve by depositing a bond of $50,000.
After a couple
of such reprieves when the Canadian Border Service Agency (CBSA)
took him to
Vancouver
airport to put him on an Indiabound flight, thousands of
Indo-Canadians averted the deportation by blocking the airport.
Later, the
community lost the $50,000 bond as Laibar Singh did not turn up for
deportation. Efforts by his supporters, lawyers, the influential
Canadian Labour Congress and other bodies to get him refugee status
on humanitarian grounds have failed.
Now he seems to
be adjusting to the reality and is ready to return to
India.
He is still enjoying the Hospitality of the Kalgidhar Darbar Sikh
Gurdwara at Abbotsford.
The
Indo-Canadian community has collected $32,000 for him and is also
arranging for some medical equipment.
Laibar, a
widower and father of four, hails from Sohal Khalsa village near
Jalandhar.
29
October 2008
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