'Returning to India means death': Montreal couple fights imminent deportation
CTV
Rajvinder Kaur and her husband Randhir Singh are spending what could be their last few weeks in Canada, fighting their imminent deportation back to India.
Rajvinder Kaur and her husband Randhir Singh are spending what could be their last few weeks in Canada, fighting their imminent deportation back to India.
Their demand for refugee status was rejected despite claims they are the victims of political violence in their native Punjab region in northern India.
"We've been through a nightmare in India, including the arrest and torture of my husband," explains Kaur, a former village chief in a region where ethnic tensions between Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs are common.
Kaur says he was arrested and tortured by internal security police on suspicions he offered shelter to radicalized Sikhs seeking independence in the disputed region that straddles the Indian and Pakistani border.
The couple moved to another Indian state but faced the same pressure from security forces. They fled to Canada in late 2015.
"For me returning to India means death," says a tearful Singh through an interpreter.
The Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB) rejected their refugee claim, saying the couple could simply move to another region of India where there is no local ethnic tension.
