By A Staff Reporter NEW YORK: Justice Ajit Singh Bains chairman of the Chandigarh based Punjab Human Rights Organization expressed his concern at the attempted deportation of Virinder Singh and Jasbir Singh Sandhu.
In a letter to the American Ambassador to India, Justice Bains said, “You are no doubt aware of the fate of the Sikhs in India, It is more than likely that if deported, there young men will forever loose their liberty.”
On purely humanitarian grounds I recommend to your excellency to coincider their request and retain them in your country after they have served their term, he said.
Virinder Singh and Jasbir Singh Sandhu along with Dr. Gurpratap Singh Birk and Sukhminder Singh were sentenced to varying prison terms after they pleaded no contest to charges that they had conspired to assassinate the then Haryana state Chief Minister Bhajan Lal during his visit to New Orleans in 1985. Another respondent Jatinder Singh Ahluwalia was acquitted by Judge Patrick B. Carr.
Lal had come for eye treatment and while in that country, he had earned a dubious title of “the most corrupt politician in India,” and a Sikh baiter. He was promoted and is now the Federal Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Birk and others had maintained that they were innocent and said they came to New Orleans to stage a demonstration against Lal for his harassment and humiliation of the Sikhs in Haryana during the Asian Games in 1984. They pleaded no contest under the “Alford vs North Carolina which allowed them to plead guilty while maintaining their innocence.
Dr. Birk is currently under detention at Lewisburg West VA. He is scheduled to be released in May 1991. Sukwinder Singh is being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York, Jasbir Singh Sandhu and Virinder Singh
have both served their three year sentences and have been on parole since September 2. They are now held by the Immigration and Naturalization Service at its servicing center in Manhattan.
Sikh leaders across the United States have expressed their strong apprehension that Jasbir Singh and Virinder Singh will face a certain death if they were to be deported to India (WSN Dec 9, 1988).
At a bail hearing on April 7 Judge Howard Cohen denied them bail on grounds of national security.
The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) had on February 14, 1989 expressed their disappointment at a similar decision by the court and had ordered it to rehear and consider the factors determining the case carefully.
‘An appeal has been filed with the BIA again by lawyer for Jasbir Singh Sandhu and Virinder Singh.
Article extracted from this publication >> May 12, 1989
