#1. INDO-CANADIAN KID SEIZED BY POWERFUL IN-LAWS IN PUNJAB
All Indo-Canadian families should read this piece very carefully because they might be able to save themselves a lot of grief.
Dupinder Kaur Hundal of Montreal married Jatinder Singh Aulakh in November, 2006, and the couple had a son, Aviraj, in Canada last September. In March, Jatinder died in an accident. Dupinder flew to Punjab to attend her husband’s last rites, according to The Tribune newspaper of Chandigarh, Punjab.
A day before Dupinder was to head back with her nine-month-old son to Canada last June, she found him missing from her room and was told by her father-in-law, Jagir Singh Aulakh, that the grandmother had taken him to the gurdwara. But when they failed to turn up at the house, she was told that they wouldn’t allow her to take her son back to Canada, according to the newspaper report.
When she protested, they threatened to register false cases against her – something that is very common in India, especially if you belong to a powerful family. It is very easy to bribe police officers and even judges of the lower courts there.
After all, her father-in-law’s brother, Veer Singh, is a former MLA, and his son, Rashpal Singh, is the local police chief (known as station house officer) in Lapoke in Amritsar district of Punjab.
As soon as she arrived in New Delhi, Dupinder informed the Canadian High Commission. She also faxed a complaint to the senior superintendent of police of Majitha and the station house officer of Lapoke about her son being forcibly taken away by her in-laws.
Members of her family in Punjab told the newspaper that she is scared of going to India because she fears that her in-laws would go to any length to keep her kid. She has filed a habeas corpus plea in the Punjab and Haryana High Court through her mother, Manjit, to try and get back her son.
Interestingly, although she complained about her son’s abduction to the Canadian High Commission and the Majitha police on June 23, the Lapoke police registered a case against her on July 4 for child desertion on the basis of a complaint by her in-laws. The in-laws alleged that they had asked her to stay in India and raise the kid, but she refused and left without him.
But she told another newspaper in India: “I was forced to run away without my child. If I had to desert him, why would have I filed a complaint on the same day with the police and the High Commission?"
She also claimed that her in-laws made her sign on some blank papers on the pretext that they would be needed for certain legal formalities in her absence, but had allegedly used them to fraudulently take over her husband’s movable and immovable property.
Interestingly, the newspaper noted: “Dupinder's story has all the ingredients of a Bollywood film, "Shakti", a Karisma Kapoor, Sanjay Kapoor and Nana Patekar-starrer. Her powerful in-laws are hell-bent upon raising the toddler in his father's motherland.”
But then, as the cliché goes, truth can be stranger than fiction!
#2. WHAT’S WRONG WITH JAZZY B? THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE!
Here are excerpts from an email I received from a reader who was too scared to give out his name or phone number in spite of my repeated assurances that I never divulge any information about my sources to anyone.
“I am writing this letter as a concerned citizen of Surrey. Upon reading the local paper here I was excited to read that the City of Surrey was arranging for Fusion Fest, an outdoor music festival put on through funds gained from the multicultural award. But to my disgust and dismay headlining Friday night’s line-up was a local Punjabi singer by the name of Jazzy B. This young man is a huge success; however, the contents of his lyrics are something that leave little to the imagination.
“Jazzy promotes the gangster lifestyle through his music, lyrics, videos and attitude. With lyrics speaking about murdering people, using guns and firearms as decoration pieces and negotiating tools, this artist is representing and promoting the image that Surrey residents, especially young South Asians, are trying to steer away from. And here we have the city paying him to show up and sing about these very things. Other subjects he sings about include serving time and going to court for murders, assaults and fights for pride, honour and girls. His videos include goons standing in the back as he sings while they carry around guns and fire weapons or promote them as accessories of fashion.
“In the music videos he features guns, and shooting violence. Also more disturbing are the images of young high school-aged kids swinging to the music wearing clothes which are currently being targeted by the Vancouver Police Department and other local police forces as gangster affiliated. And at the same time, he calls himself a role model to the youth! By promoting the gangster lifestyle and guns?”
The reader said that YouTube has all of these videos including “Jazzy B Rambo” and “Jazzy B Soorma.”
Jazzy B needs to give his head a good shake and clean up his act. The reader said he was scared to divulge his identity because of all the tough looking guys featured in Jazzy B’s videos who he said would go after him.
If readers have any opinions on this, do email me at editor@voiceonline.com.
#3. GUTLESS STEPHEN HARPER IS U.S. PRESIDENT’S CHIEF POODLE
Stephen Harper is a gutless disgrace who would rather be U.S. President George Bush’s chief poodle than a dignified Prime Minister of Canada as the case of Omar Khadr, now 21, clearly brings out.
A videotape released Tuesday by Khadr’s lawyers expose Harper and the Canadian intelligence officials as a bunch of whimpering, spineless characters willing to crawl before the Americans in abject sycophancy.
Harper also is quite clearly playing to racists and bigots in Canadian society.
Last September, The VOICE reported that federal Liberal Leader Stephane Dion had demanded that Harper ask the U.S. government to remove Khadr from the Guantanamo Bay detention facility to ensure his rights as a Canadian citizen are protected.
Of course, the Liberal government itself did nothing about Khadr when they were in power.
The Canadian Bar Association had demanded last August that Harper ask the U.S. that Khadr be released from his illegal detention and come and face any charges right here in Canada.
CBA President J. Parker MacCarthy wrote to Harper, pointing out that Khadr was 15 years old when he was captured by U.S. forces in Afghanistan in 2002 and had been detained in Guantanamo Bay for five years without trial. He noted that the CBA back in April 2006 had written to Harper, urging him to condemn the failure of the U.S. to meet the underlying principles of the rule of law through its detention of "enemy combatants" at Guantanamo Bay.
MacCarthy pointed out: “As a signatory to the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Combat, Canada has an obligation to ensure that the Protocol is being applied to its citizens.
“Canada is the only Western country with a citizen still detained at Guantanamo. Both Australia and the U.K. acted to repatriate their detained citizens. It is not enough to accept assurances from the U.S. government that "due process" is being followed. This situation demands immediate action on behalf of the Canadian government.”
Needless to say, Harper did nothing about it.
Now the newly released videotape, that was played by TV stations around the world and damaged our reputation, has exposed the cowardice of Harper and the Canadian establishment even further. But Harper shamelessly refuses to budge because he is petrified of his boss – Bush.
Khadr’s lawyers noted this week: “The tapes do not show a dangerous terrorist, but instead a frightened, wounded Canadian boy pleading for help from Canadian officials. Instead of helping, they casually dismiss his claims of abuse and mistreatment, and tell him they will do nothing for him."
They said that the footage shows that the Canadian government was aware of Khadr’s mistreatment at Guantanamo Bay and said: “This kid has suffered enough. This kid needs to come home. This kid is not a terrorist.”
Khadr was viewed as a prize prisoner because he was the son of Ahmed Said Khadr, who had ties to Al Qaeda’s elite. He was captured following a firefight with U.S. Special Forces. His military trial starts October 8 for five war crimes, including murder for allegedly throwing a grenade that fatally wounded U.S. Sgt. Christopher Speer.
#4. KHADR: WHAT WAS HIS MOTHER DOING?
If there are many Canadians who still think that Omar Khadr deserves what he’s getting, I really can’t blame them. No one who uses Canada to carry on or support terrorist activities deserves sympathy.
However, in Omar’s case, they must realize that he was really too young and at such an impressionable age when he got stuck in all this, thanks to his parents.
So now I find it really hypocritical for his mom to shed tears – she should weep and wail for her miserable role in the whole affair. She sure doesn’t deserve to be a mom.
After watching the video of her son weeping for her, she told the Canadian Press: "I cried. I said, 'O God, please answer his call. I can't answer.' I wish I can tell him. What can I do? I'm here. I wish he can hear me answering back."
Well, she should know better than anyone else that she and her husband are responsible for his tragic condition. They are the ones who should never have allowed him to get into this mess.
She told the Canadian Press that she realizes that many Canadians blame her and her late husband for Omar's plight. She said: “I know they will say … it was a stupid family who took him there (but) Omar never went (to Afghanistan) to fight. We never went there to fight. We went there to help.”
Help?
Really?
Give me a break!
I hope this serves as a good lesson to misguided youths and their families who think they can get away with these kinds of criminal activities.
#5. LAIBAR SINGH FARCE GOES ON
I was sure glad to see that failed refugee claimant Laibar Singh’s health has improved at Abbotsford’s Gurdwara Kalgidhar Darbar as the TV showed his supporters gathered at the temple to mark one year of sanctuary. But it appears that this man is playing games to stay on in Canada, even as the federal government and its Canada Border Service Agency agents look like impotent clowns.
Two weeks ago, I reported how the gurdwara held a fundraiser on a local Punjabi radio ostensibly to collect money to send with him to India. (I wonder where the hell are all those loudmouths who swore they would come up with tons of cash not too long ago to back him up?) The gurdwara’s president has kept quiet about how much money was collected at the fundraiser. But then Laibar told the media that he didn’t want to go back.
So what’s going on here?
And how is all this money being used?
The same thing happened earlier this year when Laibar Singh had taken refugee at Surrey’s Guru Nanak Sikh Temple. He first agreed to go back to India and then suddenly changed his stand.
In any case, I have never been able to understand how this whole refugee system operates in Canada? The real refugees don’t even know how to get to Canada on their own or they can’t afford to make it here.
I think we need an open debate on how this system works to weed out those who do not deserve to be in Canada. Compassion is a must and Canadians have a good reputation in this regard. But misplaced compassion or pressure from ethnic or mainstream groups and organizations is no way to run such a system.
Also, I have been demanding that the government end the practice of treating places of worship as sanctuaries. In fact, a few years ago I had warned that if churches were allowed to carry on with this practice, soon non-Christian places of worship would also be used for similar purposes.
Bingo!
That’s exactly what happened with Laibar Singh last year.
The VOICE’s stand on Laibar Singh has been that he should be sent back to India and his supporters, if they are really so sincere, should collect some serious money so that he can have a comfortable stay in India.
#6. SKYTRAIN SECURITY: WAITING FOR SOMEONE TO GET KILLED?
TransLink spokesperson Ken Hardie obviously has to do the bidding of his masters, but his email to the media in which he wrote that NDP MLA Adrian Dix “needs to think beyond the photo-op” is way out of line. Dix has been fighting to have at least one SkyTrain attendant at every station to ensure security of passengers – and in this he has had my complete support.
Hardie churned out the usual propaganda about security at SkyTrain stations: improved lighting and a fully digitalized camera system.
Yet the inescapable fact remains that unless there is the highly visible presence of a transit attendant or police officer, especially in the evenings, nothing is really going to change. As I have written before, I have witnessed people openly smoking on the Surrey Central station platform right in front of those security cameras at night on numerous occasions, but nobody stopped them. I have come across drunks and weird characters on the SkyTrain at night who quite evidently didn’t have a ticket and who harassed other passengers or scared them by their obnoxious behaviour, but one couldn’t see a single SkyTrain attendant around - just when you needed them the most.
Why don’t those idiots at SkyTrain get it?
Last week, I pointed out Hardie’s ludicrous defence that the “troubled” neighbourhood around a SkyTrain station rather than the SkyTrain system itself was to blame.
How can you separate the two?
Will someone have to be murdered again before this obviously callous government and its bureaucrats wake up?
#7. BRUCE ALLEN CONTROVERSY: LET’S MOVE ON
Remember Bruce Allen?
He’s the guy who rubbed the Indo-Canadian community the wrong way with some thoughtless, provocative remarks on Radio CKNW last September that he later apologized for.
I wrote back then: “It's good that CKNW's Bruce Allen has clarified his remarks and finally apologized - and now it is time to move on.
“For sure, he should have apologized much earlier instead of being downright arrogant - but he did finally swallow his false pride …
“Allen is not a racist - many Indo-Canadians who have known him and interacted with him have told me so over the past week.”
However, some Indo-Canadians apparently saw that as a good opportunity to blow the whole matter out of proportion apparently to get themselves on some multicultural committee for the 2010 Winter Games.
I reacted to that move in an article titled “The VOICE does not support removal of Allen from VANOC Committee.”
I wrote: “We respect differences in opinions, but so should others within reasonable limits – and The VOICE is the last one to shy away from racism issues as our readers as well as the mainstream media, and the government and police know too well.
“ … Allen has already learned a good lesson in multiculturalism and we should be magnanimous. He should remain on the 2010 Vancouver Organizing Committee. He has assured Indo-Canadians that their culture will be represented at the Olympic ceremonies unlike what happened a few years ago during the 2010 bid when we were completely left out.”
This week, a six-person panel of the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council ruled that Allen’s comments did not violate the Human Rights Clause of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters’ code of ethics.
The panel said: “Political speech is the most important kind of speech to protect and its occasional unpleasantness does not change its nature. If anything, as Allen himself argued, the provocative nature of what he said did result in a heightened awareness of the issue and considerable further discussion in the public place, a great democratic plus.”
Not that I really believe in the panel’s objectivity – it could just be the usual case of white men defending their fellow white men.
However, as far as I am concerned, Allen is not a racist and he would never (hopefully) make stupid, ignorant remarks again.
So, as I said last year, let’s move on.
Some individuals who want to use our community for their own selfish ambitions should back out.
#8. BASI-VIRK CASE: WHAT ARE GOVERNMENT, PROSECUTION REALLY AFRAID OF?
It seems that the government and the prosecution are desperate to hide certain facts in the December 28, 2003 B.C. Legislature Raid Case involving, among others, then ministerial aides Dave Basi and Bob Virk and Dave's cousin Aneal Basi. The charges of breach of trust, fraud and gaining benefits involve the B.C. Rail sale to CN Rail.
Now the Crown has decided to seek leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada to overturn B.C. Supreme Court Justice Elizabeth Bennett’s ruling that defence lawyers could be present at a closed hearing concerning a secret police witness, but they had to give an undertaking that they would forever keep the name of the informant secret.
So be prepared for still more delays!
Last week, I reported that the B.C. Court of Appeal dismissed a bid by special prosecutor William Berardino to overturn Bennett’s ruling.
The defence lawyers are interested to know why the police gave the informer such a privileged status. Berardino had indicated that the Crown would drop key evidence rather than risk revealing the informer’s identity.
I have found too many mysterious elements in this case.
For example, then-RCMP Sgt. Kevin Debruyckere, who was conducting the investigation, was apparently biased because he was the brother-in-law of B.C. Liberal Party executive director Kelly Reichert who worked with then finance minister Gary Collins and Premier Gordon Campbell.
Then, I have always wondered why the white guys of the RCMP went after minor players like the brown guys instead of going after the white guys who were the major players: Brian Kieran, a former political columnist with The Province newspaper, and his partner Erik Bornman of the Pilothouse Public Affairs Group, a former communications director for the B.C. Liberal Party, who were allegedly making routine payments to Basi and Virk. The RCMP will in all probability be using Kieran and Bornman to testify against Basi and Virk – whereas it should have been the other way around, no?
How much longer will we have to wait until all those skeletons come tumbling out of the closet?
- Rattan Mall
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