Roadrash passenger deported to India

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September 15, 2005 08:40 IST

Canada on Wednesday deported to India a Vancouver-based man involved in a fatal streetcar race five years ago.

This is part of a new hard-line approach to immigrant-related crimes.

Bahadur Singh Bhalru, 26, was only a passenger in a car that hit and killed 51-year-old Irene Thorpe during a street race in November 2000.

The driver, however, faces deportation only at a later date, and is currently in the middle of appeals.

Bhalru and his co-accused Sukhir Singh Khosa were convicted of criminal negligence causing death.

Bhalru served a two-year conditional sentence and is believed to be the first person in Canada to be convicted of being a participant in a high-speed fatal race, but not the driver.

He failed in his appeal to Canada's federal court for a stay of deportation on Tuesday.

His lawyer Zool Suleman said he argued in court that his client was in danger of being harmed by corrupt police in India.

Bhalru moved to Canada from India with his family in 1997 and lived in Vancouver, on Canada's west coast, with his parents and grandmother. He had no previous convictions.

At a press conference at Vancouver International Airport just before he boarded his plane yesterday Bhalru told reporters that although India is the country of his birth, Canada was his home and that he was a taxpayer and now felt like a 'political refugee'.

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