With failed refugee claimant Laibar Singh facing imminent deportation, Abbotsford’s Gurdwara Kalgidhar Darbar approached Radio Sher-e-Punjab to help out with an appeal for donations so that he would have money to support himself back in India.
Ajit Singh Badh, Director of Sher-e-Punjab told The VOICE this week that when the gurdwara representatives approached him, he decided to give them four hours free last week on Friday.
Badh said: “We felt he was poor and paralysed.”
He said the response was good and that the money was being collected by the gurdwara and not the radio station.
The VOICE called the president of the temple Swaran Singh Gill and left several messages on his cellphone. But there was no response.
Singh took sanctuary on July 7 last year in the Abbotsford Kalgidhar Darbar Gurdwara. While in sanctuary, Singh's health deteriorated and he had to be hospitalized. On Monday, August 13, while in the hospital, Abbottsford police and Canadian Border Services Agency officers detained Singh. Due to immense community and political pressure, Singh was granted a 60-day stay first on August 20 and then another stay on October 20, pending a decision on his humanitarian and compassionate claim. He was finally served a deportation order for December 10.
But on December 13, thousands of protestors blocked the CBSA officers at Vancouver International Airport from deporting him and he was whisked away to another gurdwara and finally to Surrey’s Guru Nanak Sikh Temple where another attempt by CBSA officers to deport him was thwarted by protestors in January and the temple’s executive committee even declared the gurdwara a sanctuary.
Then in March, following disagreement with the gurdwara authorities, Laibar Singh was taken once again to Abbotsford’s Kalgidhar Darbar Gurdwara, where he has been since then.
Meanwhile, all those who had contributed to Laibar Singh’s bond of $50,000 posted as security for him (Surrey’s Guru Nanak Sikh Temple contributed $10,000) lost their money as Laibar Singh and his supporters refused to surrender him to the CBSA.
This whole episode has badly tarnished the image of Indo-Canadians and even as recently as a couple of weeks ago I heard negative comments about the airport incident from a Caucasian friend who is anything but a racist.
The VOICE’s stand was that he should be sent back to India and that his supporters, if they really were so sincere should collect some serious money for him.
Evidently, most of his supporters turned out to be hypocrites as Balwant Singh Gill told the VOICE in March that Laibar Singh received only “small contributions.” His supporters lost all credibility with both the mainstream and the ethnic media as many of the most prominent ones started backing out.
|
