Indian will be kept in custody till deportation
By Misbah Karim | Wed, 01/14/2009 - 22:04
A man whom RCMP questioned in the murder of a newspaper publisher of British Columbia a decade ago will not be released from custody as he waits deportation back to India.
Since May 20, Manjit Singh Rattu has been waiting to get out of the Calgary Remand Centre. A deportation order was issued to Rattu in May 2000 and after that he was convicted in Delta, BC, on charges related to various frauds.
Rattu was also questioned in the murder of Tara Singh Hayer, who was the founder of the Indo-Canadian community. However, he was also cleared from the case.
Immigration adjudicator Leanne King wrote that based on the facts that Mr. Rattu has repeatedly been saying that he does not want to go back to India, and his refusal to cooperate with the efforts of the minister to obtain his travel documents, the only conclusion that can be logically reached is that Mr. Rattu will not voluntarily report for his deportation to India. Thus, the adjudicator concluded that Mr. Rattu should be continued to be kept in detention till he is deported.
The adjudicator primarily made the judgment because Rattu is refusing to sign travel documents that is required by the Indian government for his deportation back to India.
Rattu’s lawyer, Rakesh Dewett, argued that if his client is sent back to India then he would be in danger over there. Dewett said that in countries of the third world, if one does not have a status, which is the case with Rattu, anything can be done by them, adding that they can even put him in a central jail where no one can locate him.
He said that if they want to produce Rattu, they can do that, and at the same time, they can even eliminate him at will.
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