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Paralyzed Laibar Singh finally
returns to India but pain remains
WSN Bureau
 ABBOTSFORD,
B.C.: When he came to
Canada, it was
on a fake passport. When he was asked to leave, he did something
illegal and took shelter in a religious place. When he was sougth to
be deported, he resisted and physical obstructions were created.
Now read the law
and one would think no one would have sympathy with such a man.
Fortunately,
better sense prevails in the world sometimes, and it becomes clear
that notions of law and justice are not limited to the spirit of
what the statute books say. Rigth and wrong is decided on a much
larger horizon and not by what is visible to the eye.
As the paralyzed
refugee claimant Laibar Singh said a tearful farewell, many in the
crowd that had come to see him off were crying. He left the
sanctuary of the gurdwara for the
Vancouver
airport.
As he
participated in the ardas and then was wheeled through a crowd of a
few dozen people, some of them weeping, to a waiting vehicle, one
thing was clear: humane feelings can overcome anyone.
Singh's
supporters say he decided to go home Monday night after numerous
attempts to lobby the federal government on his behalf had failed.
Swarn Singh
Gill, president of the Abbotsford, B.C., gurdwara where Laibar Singh
has been living, said that in the end, Singh chose to return to
India
because he missed his four children, who are in their teens and
early 20s. Gill said Singh would leave Canada with some resentment
because he felt he should have been allowed to remain here.
There is a clear
feeling among those fighting for Laibar Singh that government
ministers in
Ottawa had the
power to give him a visa but did not do so. Canada Border Services
Agency officials visited him repeatedly and it was never a happy
experience.
He expressed
thanks to everyone, not forgetting those who donated thousands of
dollars to support him and the doctor and acupuncturist who provided
him with free treatment.
A doctor who
cared for him while he was in sanctuary has now undertaken to
arrange for medical professionals to look after him in
India.
The Sequence
Laibar Singh
used a false passport to enter
Canada in 2003
and fled from Toronto to Vancouver, where he suffered an illness
that left him paralyzed.
Officials from
the Canada Border Services Agency arrested Singh at a hospital in
July 2007, shortly after he moved into the gurdwara and went for
treatment.
There has since
then been an outstanding removal order for him.
He claimed
refugee status, saying authorities in
India falsely
linked him to a terrorist group and would arrest him if he went back
there. Also that he wouldn't get proper medical help in his native
homeland. But his claim was denied after an investigation by
immigration officials concluded his fears of being tortured by
Punjabi police weren't credible and he has since faced deportation.
Last December,
Canada Border Services Agency officials abandoned an attempt to
return him to
India following
a standoff with his supporters at
Vancouver
International
Airport.
About 1,000
people surrounded a van delivering him to the departures area of the
airport.
5 November
2008
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