A prominent member of the Sikh community in Auckland is enraged over the harassment and “nasty” treatment meted out to his wife and toddler son by Immigration officials at the New Delhi airport. At press time, Ranvir Lali Singh, Secretary of the New Zealand Sikh Society Auckland and a builder, was considering lodging a serious protest after his homemaker wife Shubhneet Kaur and their two-year-old son Bachint Vir Singh returned to New Zealand spending three agonising days travelling between New Zealand and India and barred from entering their home country.
Mr Singh said that his wife and son had travelled to India on a valid visitor permit stamped on their New Zealand passports by the Wellington based Indian High Commission recently.
They were to spend a month in their home country, meeting family and friends.
Shubhneet Kaur has been a resident of New Zealand since 1997 and has since become a citizen of this country. Bachint was born in Auckland in August 2007.
Mr Singh said that the much-anticipated holiday was destroyed and his wife subject to insult and ill-treatment, because of the intransigent officials in India.
“I was shocked to learn that Shubhneet and Bachint were stopped by Immigration at the New Delhi International Airport upon their arrival on January 12. They were supposedly on the ‘Government of India Black List,’ about which we did not know. The officials harassed them and showed no sympathy. Only terrorists and criminals are placed on Black Lists. I cannot understand how a humble housewife and a two-year-old child could be on such a barred list,” he told Indian Newslink, while waiting for their arrival at the Auckland International Airport on January 14.
An Indian High Commission official told this newspaper that the Mission was not aware of the incident and that “there was no record of the two New Zealanders on the Mission’s Black List.
“We need to find out from New Delhi,” the official said.
The ordeal of the two harassed passengers did not end with their deportation from India. They were subject to “unnecessary bag search and interrogation” for more than four hours at the Auckland International Airport.
Immigration and Customs officials wanted to know from Shubhneet Kaur why she was held up at the New Delhi International Airport and why she and her son were deported, the answers to which the harassed woman could not obviously provide.
Mr Singh now wants answers to a number of his own questions.
“How do a housewife and toddler get on to a Black List?”
“If they were in the Black List, how did the High Commission issue a Visitor Visa to both of them? Does not the Indian Government convey the names of those in the Black List to diplomatic missions? If this is so, why were we not informed?”
“What is the basis on which people are Black Listed?”
While Mr Singh awaits answers to these questions, Indian Newslink understands that similarity of names often confuse Immigration officials in India.
But one observer said, “Surely, a mother travelling with a toddler cannot be branded a terrorist! The officials at the New Delhi International Airport should have checked properly and allowed the young woman and her son to enter the country.
“It is equally unbecoming of the officials at the Auckland International Airport to further harass the depressed woman. After all, she is a New Zealand citizen. There should be a proper inquiry into this incident,” he said.
Labour MP and the Party’s Foreign Affairs spokesman Chris Carter said he would take up the matter with the Indian High Commissioner and New Zealand Immigration and Customs.
SikhsIndia
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