OTTAWA: The Indian government has blocked attempts by Amnesty International to monitor the safety of a rejected Sikh refugee claimant who was deported from Canada.

” Amnesty International has tried to follow him and we’ve received no cooperation from the Indian authorities. As of now, we don’t know where he is or what’s happened to him,” Michael Schelew, refugee affairs spokesman for Amnesty’s Canadian section, said. Chhinder Pal Bhattia was the first refugee claimant to be ordered deported under Canada’s tough new refugee determination system, which went into effect Jan. 1. He was loaded onto a KLM flight from Montreal to Amsterdam on and was to fly on another KLM. flight from Amsterdam to India on Saturday.

Firdaus K haras, immigration policy adviser to Immigration Minister Barabar McDougall, said Monday that the Canadian High Commission in India reported that Bhattia arrived in India and encountered no problems upon his arrival.

However Kharas could not save it Bhattia landed in Bombay or New Delhi, where he is now or why the Indian government would block Amnesty’s attempts to locate him.

While the Canadian High Commission doesn’t plan to monitor Bhattia, Kharas said, “certainly they’ll apprise us if they’re aware of any problems” in the future.

Schelew dismissed the high commission report, saying the commission would have received its information from the Indian government. Amnesty will not give up trying to find Bhattia, hesaid, until it can confirm independently that he’s safe.

Amnesty had warned McDougall that Bhattia, who espoused a separate Sikh state of Khalistan could be detained without trial and possibly tortured if forced to return to India but McDougall refused to intervene in the case.

Schelew said that heasked Amnesty’s Indian section to monitor Bhattia upon his return. But Amnesty workers were stonewalled by Indian authorities in their attempts to find out what has happened to the man, he said.

Due to conflicting signals from Canadian immigration autocues as to Bhattia’s destination. Amnesty workers were stationed at both the Bombay and New Delhi airports to meet Bhattia as soon as he arrived, But Schelew said Indian government officials refused to let the workers anywhere near the arrivals area and refused to say if Bhattia had even landed.

When Amnesty tried to confirm Bhattia’s arrival with KLM, the group was told that government authorities had specifically instructed the airlines to give no passenger information to Amnesty, Schelew said.

In related news, to help ease pressure on provincial welfare rolls, the federal Immigration Department said Monday all refugee claimants who arrived in Canada before Jan 1 would be eligible to work.

At the end of 1988, there was a backlog of about 85,000 refugee claimants. About 30,000 of those had already received work authorizations through the old process.

The rest are to receive a letter confirming to employers their eligibility to take a job the department said in a statement.

Without the means to support themselves such people have relied on provincial welfare assistance, said the department which hopes to clear the backlog in two years under a new immigration and refugee system that took effect Jan 1.

Article extracted from this publication >>  February 10, 1989