Canada denies visa to CRPF ex-IG, India lodges protest

Simran Sodhi

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 23

In what may possibly strain relations between India and Canada, the Canadian authorities today denied visa to a top-ranking retired Indian police officer of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) on charges that the paramilitary force in which he worked had committed “human rights” violations.

India was quick to voice its protest and said it had taken up the matter with the Canadian government and that the “characterisation of a reputed force like the CRPF is completely unacceptable”.

Tejinder Singh Dhillon, who retired as inspector general of police of the CRPF was declared inadmissible under Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

According to reports emerging out of Canada, the initial document given to Dhillon said he was being denied the visa because the government he worked for “engages or has engaged in terrorism, systematic or gross human rights violations, or genocide”.

Later, the immigration authorities retraced the earlier document which attacked the Indian Government and issued a new document where the attack was specifically on the CRPF. The new document issued to Dhillon for refusing him a visa said the force he worked for was accused of “committing widespread and systemic human rights abuses, for example torture, arbitrary detention, murder and sexual assault”.

This is not the first time and India and Canada have clashed over human rights issues. But what is surprising in this case is that Dhillon had apparently travelled to Canada many a time before and that too when he was serving in the CRPF.

In April, when Canadian Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan visited India, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh called him a “Khalistani sympathiser” and refused to meet him. Before that, the Ontario Assembly passed a resolution describing the 1984 anti-Sikh riots as “genocide”, which India reacted to sharply.