Randhir Singh said the Indian police officers kicked him in the face, knocking out two teeth, and beat him with wooden sticks while they held him at the station for three days.
Singh, 70, said they also grabbed him by the legs to stretch him as if to pull him apart.
“They almost tore me apart … they stretched from both sides,” he said, speaking in Punjabi, during an interview with CBC News.
“They beat me so much that I was unconscious most of the time.”
He said police only released him on the third day in May 2015 because his wife sought the help of the gurdwara leadership in Nijampur, the Punjab village where they lived.
Singh and his wife, Rajvinder Kaur, 67, now live in Montreal. They are able to stay in Canada under a temporary resident permit issued in August by the federal immigration minister, narrowly averting deportation back to India.
They are among a steadily rising number of Indian nationals seeking refugee protection in Canada since Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi took power in 2014, according to federal data reviewed by CBC News.
The torture still haunts Singh. He suffers from severe, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), according to medical records filed in Federal Court.
“He is one of the most traumatized people that I’ve seen in the last 10 years or so,” said Montreal human rights lawyer Stewart Istvanffy, who represented the couple with their refugee claim.
Influx of Indian refugees
So far this year, Canada has accepted 1,344 refugee claims from India, making it the third-largest source country for refugees. It’s behind Iran, with 2,730 accepted claims, and Turkey with 1,993, according to Immigration Refugee Board (IRB) data.
Canada accepted 3,469 refugee claims from India in 2022, the highest total in at least the last 20 years, according to the federal data.
There were fewer than 20 accepted claims in 2014. The IRB doesn’t provide exact numbers under 20.
The rate of accepted claims from India has also risen steadily in the last decade.
That rate — accepted claims over rejected claims — rose from under 20 per cent in 2014 to nearly 50 per cent in 2022, according to Sean Rehaag, director of the Refugee Law Lab, an online data and document portal.
“What that’s saying is that Canada is recognizing that there is persecution and human rights violations in India,” said Rehaag, an associate professor at Osgoode Law School and director of York University’s Centre for Refugee Studies, which hosts the lab.
“That combination — an increase in the number of people making claims and an increase in the recognition rates — tells me that the human rights situation in India has worsened during this period.”
Refugee claims from India to Canada have skyrocketed
The number of accepted Indian refugee claims in Canada have increased from 20 in 2014 to 3,469 in 2022. Some experts say this is due to repression of non-Hindu minority groups in the country since Prime Minister Narendra Modi took power.
In 2019, the same year Modi won re-election, the number of successful refugee claims exceeded 300 for the first time in over a decade, the data shows. After a small drop during COVID-19-afflicted 2020, successful claims surpassed 1,000 in 2021.
“Correlation is not causation, but in this you certainly have the causation,” said Raj Sharma, an immigration lawyer with the Calgary firm Stewart Sharma Harsanyi.
Sharma said religious minorities like Sikhs, Muslims and Christians are also facing increased discrimination.
“Something that we didn’t quite see in the past, but we’re seeing more now, is the increase in terms of religious intolerance,” he said, adding the Modi government “espouses a far more muscular view and aggressive view of the Hindu majority.”
Raj Sharma is a Calgary immigration lawyer. Sharma says that he is seeing more cases involving religious intolerance from India.
Calgary immigration lawyer Raj Sharma says that he is seeing more cases involving religious intolerance from India. (CBC News/Justin Pennell)
Some experts say the numbers are fuelled by unscrupulous immigration-brokers, who sell fake documents and concocted stories to well-off Indian nationals seeking greener pastures in North America.
“People who are actually refugees, people who actually suffer because of clashes between two ethnic communities, they don’t get passports, they don’t have money to come abroad,” said Shinder Purewal, a political science professor at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Surrey, B.C.
“It’s these smart people who are spending a lot of money to buy all kinds of documents and they are the ones who are able to travel.”
Cyberattacks hit military, Parliament websites as India-based group targets Canada
Newly revealed threats against Sikh activists in Canada, U.S. boost urgency to solve Nijjar’s death
Canadian Sikh activist’s killing has put a spotlight on India’s little-known intelligence agency
Modi’s government reacted with fury to Canada’s claim earlier this month that intelligence showed India’s hand in the June killing of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, B.C.
The Indian government suspended visa processing in Canada — effectively barring Canadians from visiting India — and issued a travel advisory warning Indian nationals could face “political condoned hate crimes and criminal violence in Canada.”
‘Problems in the world’
This is not the first time a wave of refugees — particularly Sikh — from India have sought protection in Canada.
The turbulent and bloody conflicts between Indian state authorities and Sikh separatists during the early to mid-1980s unleashed a surge of refugees to Canada, said Sharma.
“That led to the first exodus,” he said.
That exodus also led to a landmark Supreme Court ruling in 1985 that laid the foundation for the Immigration and Refugee Board. The case involved six Sikh plaintiffs and a woman from Guyana, said Toronto lawyer Barbara Jackman, who represented intervenors in the case.
“When there’s problems in the world, we see it in Canada, we start seeing the movement of people coming and claiming protection,” said Jackman.
The high court ruled that the Charter applied to asylum seekers who had a right to a fair hearing.
From a good life to harassment
Singh and Kaur had a good life in India. Singh was the caretaker of the village gurdwara and Kaur was a sarpanch, or elected leader of the village.
The events that drove them from the country began one night in May 2015 when two Sikh men, who said their truck had broken down, asked to sleep at the gurdwara.
Local police arrived at the gurdwara during the night but the two men fled and Singh was detained.
Police told him the men were militants, Singh said in an affidavit filed on June 29 in Federal Court.
“Police interrogated me intensively.… My religious symbols were disrespected and removed. My beard was pulled. I was abused, humiliated and beaten.… Police were forcing me to confess my links with the militants. I denied all allegations.”
Singh said police continued to hound him, accusing him of sheltering militants on other occasions.
Within five months, Singh and Kaur had come to Canada.
Randhir Singh, right, and his wife Rajvinder Kaur, are trying to build a new life in Montreal.
Singh and Kaur are trying to build a new life in Montreal. (CBC News/Charles Contant)
Their son, Sikander Singh, still lives in the state of Punjab. His home was twice raided this year by federal police agents who claimed his parents were involved with Khalistan militants, he said in a Federal Court affidavit supporting his parents’ refugee claim.
“The [National Investigation Agency] has made the accusation that my parents are doing money laundering and of being involved in a conspiracy against India, which is completely untrue,” he stated in the affidavit
For Singh and Kaur, life in Canada comes with its own struggles.
“Sometimes [Kaur] goes to the library or somewhere else, I’m alone and I stay in depression without talking to anyone,” said Singh.
Singh attempted suicide this summer after their refugee claim hit a dead-end and they faced deportation. Death here is better than death there, he said.
“They would’ve killed me,” said Singh. “They kill a lot of people there.”
Montreal Alouettes wide receiver Tyson Philpot has announced he will be out for the rest of the CFL season.
The Delta, B.C., native posted the news on his Instagram page Thursday.
“To Be Continued. Shoutout my team, the fans of the CFL and the whole city of Montreal! I can’t wait to be back healthy and write this next chapter in 2025,” the statement read.
Philpot, 24, injured his foot in a 33-23 win over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Aug. 10 and was placed on the six-game injured list the next week.
The six-foot-one, 195-pound receiver had 58 receptions, 779 yards and five touchdowns in nine games for the league-leading Alouettes in his third season.
Philpot scored the game-winning touchdown in Montreal’s Grey Cup win last season to punctuate a six-reception, 63-yard performance.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa sustained a concussion for the third time in his NFL career, leaving his team’s game Thursday night against Buffalo after running into defensive back Damar Hamlin and hitting the back of his head against the turf.
Tagovailoa remained down for about two minutes before getting to his feet and walking to the sideline after the play in the third quarter. He made his way to the tunnel not long afterward, looking into the stands before smiling and departing toward the locker room.
The Dolphins needed almost no time before announcing it was a concussion. The team said he had two during the 2022 season, and Tagovailoa was diagnosed with another concussion when he was a college player at Alabama.
Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel said Tagovailoa would get “proper procedural evaluation” and “appropriate care” on Friday.
“The furthest thing from my mind is, ‘What is the timeline?’ We just need to evaluate and just worry about my teammate, like the rest of the guys are,” McDaniel said. “We’ll get more information tomorrow and take it day by day from here.”
Some players saw Tagovailoa in the locker room after the game and said they were encouraged. Tagovailoa spoke with some players and then went home after the game, McDaniel said.
“I have a lot of love for Tua, built a great relationship with him,” said quarterback Skylar Thompson, who replaced Tagovailoa after the injury. “You care about the person more than the player and everybody in the organization would say the same thing. Just really praying for Tua and hopefully everything will come out all right.”
Tagovailoa signed a four-year, $212 million extension before this season — a deal that makes him one of the highest-paid players in the NFL — and was the NFL’s leading passer in Week 1 this season. Tagovailoa left with the Dolphins trailing 31-10, and that was the final score.
“If you know Tua outside of football, you can’t help but feel for him,” Bills quarterback Josh Allen said on Amazon following the game. “He’s a great football player but he’s an even greater human being. He’s one of the best humans on the planet. I’ve got a lot of love for him and I’m just praying for him and his family, hoping everything’s OK. But it’s tough, man. This game of football that we play, it’s got its highs and it’s got its lows — and this is one of the lows.”
Tagovailoa’s college years and first three NFL seasons were marred by injury, though he positioned himself for a big pay bump with an injury-free and productive 2023 as he led the Dolphins into the playoffs. He threw for 29 touchdowns and a league-best 4,624 yards last year.
When, or if, he can come back this season is anyone’s guess. Tagovailoa said in April 2023 that the concussions he had in the 2022 season left him contemplating his playing future. “I think I considered it for a time,” he said then, when asked if he considered stepping away from the game to protect himself.
McDaniel said it’s not his place to say if Tagovailoa should return to football. “He’ll be evaluated and we’ll have conversations and progress as appropriate,” McDaniel said.
Tagovailoa was hurt Thursday on a fourth-down keeper with about 4:30 left in the third. He went straight ahead into Hamlin and did not slide, leading with his right shoulder instead.
Hamlin was the player who suffered a cardiac arrest after making a tackle during a Monday night game in January 2023 at Cincinnati, causing the NFL to suspend a pivotal game that quickly lost significance in the aftermath of a scary scene that unfolded in front of a national television audience.
Tagovailoa wound up on his back, both his hands in the air and Bills players immediately pointed at him as if to suggest there was an injury. Dolphins center Aaron Brewer quickly did the same, waving to the sideline.
Tagovailoa appeared to be making a fist with his right hand as he lay on the ground. It was movement consistent with something that is referred to as the “fencing response,” which can be common after a traumatic brain injury.
Tagovailoa eventually got to his feet. McDaniel grabbed the side of his quarterback’s head and gave him a kiss on the cheek as Tagovailoa departed. Thompson came into the game to take Tagovailoa’s spot.
“I love Tua on and off the football field,” Bills edge Von Miller said. “I’m a huge fan of him. I can empathize and sympathize with him because I’ve been there. I wish him the best.”
Tagovailoa’s history with concussions — and how he has since worked to avoid them — is a huge part of the story of his career, and now comes to the forefront once again.
He had at least two concussions during the 2022 season. He was hurt in a Week 3 game against Buffalo and cleared concussion protocol, though he appeared disoriented on that play but returned to the game.
The NFL later changed its concussion protocol to mandate that if a player shows possible concussion symptoms — including a lack of balance or stability — he must sit out the rest of the game.
Less than a week later, in a Thursday night game at Cincinnati, Tagovailoa was concussed on a scary hit that briefly knocked him unconscious and led to him being taken off the field on a stretcher.
His second known concussion of that season came in a December game against Green Bay, and he didn’t play for the rest of the 2022 season. After that, Tagovailoa began studying ways where he may be able to fall more safely and protect himself against further injury — including studying jiu-jitsu.
“I’m not worried about anything that’s out of my hands,” McDaniel said. “I’m just worried about the human being.”
NEW YORK (AP) — When her husband turns on the television to hear news about the upcoming presidential election, that’s often a signal for Lori Johnson Malveaux to leave the room.
It can get to be too much. Often, she’ll go to a TV in another room to watch a movie on the Hallmark Channel or BET. She craves something comforting and entertaining. And in that, she has company.
While about half of Americans say they are following political news “extremely” or “very” closely, about 6 in 10 say they need to limit how much information they consume about the government and politics to avoid feeling overloaded or fatigued, according to a new survey from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and USAFacts.
Make no mistake: Malveaux plans to vote. She always does. “I just get to the point where I don’t want to hear the rhetoric,” she said.
The 54-year-old Democrat said she’s most bothered when she hears people on the news telling her that something she saw with her own eyes — like the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol — didn’t really happen.
“I feel like I’m being gaslit. That’s the way to put it,” she said.
Sometimes it feels like ‘a bombardment’
Caleb Pack, 23, a Republican from Ardmore, Oklahoma, who works in IT, tries to keep informed through the news feeds on his phone, which is stocked with a variety of sources, including CNN, Fox News, The Wall Street Journal and The Associated Press.
Yet sometimes, Pack says, it seems like a bombardment.
“It’s good to know what’s going on, but both sides are pulling a little bit extreme,” he said. “It just feels like it’s a conversation piece everywhere, and it’s hard to escape it.”
Media fatigue isn’t a new phenomenon. A Pew Research Center survey conducted in late 2019 found roughly two in three Americans felt worn out by the amount of news there is, about the same as in a poll taken in early 2018. During the 2016 presidential campaign, about 6 in 10 people felt overloaded by campaign news.
But it can be particularly acute with news related to politics. The AP-NORC/USAFacts poll found that half of Americans feel a need to limit their consumption of information related to crime or overseas conflicts, while only about 4 in 10 are limiting news about the economy and jobs.
It’s easy to understand, with television outlets like CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC full of political talk and a wide array of political news online, sometimes complicated by disinformation.
“There’s a glut of information,” said Richard Coffin, director of research and advocacy for USAFacts, “and people are having a hard time figuring out what is true or not.”
Women are more likely to feel they need to limit media
In the AP-NORC poll, about 6 in 10 men said they follow news about elections and politics at least “very” closely, compared to about half of women. For all types of news, not just politics, women are more likely than men to report the need to limit their media consumption, the survey found.
White adults are also more likely than Black or Hispanic adults to say they need to limit media consumption on politics, the poll found.
Kaleb Aravzo, 19, a Democrat, gets a baseline of news by listening to National Public Radio in the morning at home in Logan, Utah. Too much politics, particularly when he’s on social media sites like TikTok and Instagram, can trigger anxiety and depression.
“If it pops up on my page when I’m on social media,” he said, “I’ll just scroll past it.”
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Sanders reported from Washington. David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder.
The AP poll of 1,019 adults was conducted July 29-August 8, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.0 percentage points.
