Gurmej Singh Gill Said HeRenounced His Membership InThe Banned Group Long AgoAnd Is Being WronglyHarassed!“I had done nothing wrong.People who do believe in violence– I had nothing to do withthem because British law doesn’tallow these things,” Gill said.
TORONTO – A former topleader of the banned BabbarKhalsa extremist group’s UKunit has been ordered to appearbefore an immigration panel inCanada to decide whether heshould be allowed to stay in thecountry.Gurmej Singh Gill arrived inVancouver with his wife to visitrelatives in late November andwas supposed to be returning tohis home in Birmingham,England on December 22.But he was ordered to appearbefore an immigration andrefugee board adjudicator due tohis alleged link to the bannedoutfit, Vancouver Sun reported.Melissa Anderson, communicationsadviser in Immigration andRefugee Board of Canada, saidGill’s admissibility hearing islikely be held in late February orearly March.Anderson said Gill was referredfor the hearing under Section 34(1)(f) of the Canadian act whichsays a person is inadmissible toCanada if he or she is “a memberof an organisation that,there are reasonable grounds tobelieve, engages, has engaged orwill engage in acts of espionage,subversion or terrorism”.It is not the first time the formerBabbar Khalsa leader has runinto problems with Canadianimmigration officials.He was arrested at Vancouverairport in August 2001 when hearrived for his son’s weddingand was sent back to Englandwithout attending the festivities.Gill earlier toldThe Vancouver Sun that herenounced his membership inthe Babbar Khalsa Internationalin 2001, after the group wasbanned in the UK.But he also said that during theperiod he headed the Britishbranch of the organisation.”I had done nothing wrong.People who do believe in violence- I had nothing to do withthem because British law doesn’tallow these things,” he said.For years Gill called himselfGurmej Singh Babbar and regularlyvisited Canada, where heonce lived.The Babbar Khalsa was put onthe banned terrorist list inCanada in 2003, years after ithad been linked to the June 23,1985 Air India bombing that left329 people dead.
Courtesy PTI
