During his nearly 25 years with Peel Regional Police, Baljiwan “B.J.” Sandhu has built bridges between police and the burgeoning South Asian community and other visible-minority groups. Because he can speak four languages, he has also stepped in to aid in homicide cases and been seconded to help special units when needed.

The awards and accolades have piled up, including a Queen’s Diamond jubilee medal in 2012 for his dedication to policing and public service.

Also piling up, according to a newly filed application to the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, was a “steady barrage of humiliation, embarrassment, hurtfulness and harassment of a discriminatory nature” from fellow officers that began during basic training and continues to this day.

Recently denied a promotion to the rank of inspector, Sandhu, 52, a detective sergeant, is alleging superiors are blocking the move up because of his ethnic background and a belief that the work he has done does not amount to “real” police work. He alleges he was told by a former chief that it was his job to keep leaders of minority groups “away” from him.

Sandhu is seeking $1 million in damages, a promotion, a promise from the service that it will comply with the Ontario Human Rights Code, a review of promotion policies and extra training for officers.

“We expect that his case will shed light on a police culture that has failed to keep pace with the developing mosaic that is the population of Peel Region,” Barry Swadron, Sandhu’s lawyer, said in an email to the Star.

The application names the Peel Police Services Board and Chief Jennifer Evans as respondents. None of Sandhu’s allegations has been proved before the tribunal and the service has yet to reply formally to them.

A police spokesperson said late Friday the service had yet to be officially served with the application, which was filed with the tribunal on Jan. 17.

The Star provided a full copy of the application to police and sought comment on specific allegations and in general on the promotional process and efforts the service has made to reflect the communities it serves.

“It’s not something we would comment on” until the human-rights tribunal process is finished, said police spokesperson Staff Sergeant Dan Richardson.

Sandhu himself declined to be interviewed for this story, but according to his human-rights complaint, he applied online in early 2013 for one of seven expected inspector vacancies that were coming up.

According to his complaint, two superiors told him they would not endorse his application for promotion and advised him it would be better for him to withdraw from the process than be rejected. When he did not withdraw, along came a “negative promotional assessment” that — while lauding his work as an “ambassador” for police within the South Asian community and an “unwavering commitment to the diverse communities” — stated he did not have enough experience as a “front line” supervisor.

In a letter in March, 2013, Chief Evans informed Sandhu that he would not be getting an interview for the jobs. Although offered a debrief, presumably about why he was turned down, he has so far not had one, according to his complaint.

After later being refused a transfer to a job that would give him more supervisory experience, Sandhu filed a formal grievance against the Peel Police Services Board regarding its promotional process, and looked for other positions that would give him more experience.

Instead, he states he “was advised that until my grievance was concluded, I would not be receiving any” acting inspector time. In late 2013, he was transferred from Pearson International Airport to 21 Division, where he now works as a detective sergeant.

Sandhu left India for Canada in 1981 with a university degree in commerce; he joined the Peel force as a recruit in 1989. He was the first Punjabi officer assigned to District 2 in the city of Brampton, he says in his complaint.

In his complaint, under a heading of “My Continuous Struggle,” Sandhu lists a number of examples of alleged discrimination that he says began at the outset of his policing career.

During a basic training presentation on the operations of the service’s communications bureau, a speaker remarked that, in the future, outgoing police officers would be replaced by “women and Pakis.” Sandhu states that the rest of the recruit class looked at him, leaving him “hurt and embarrassed.”

Early in his career, other officers mimicked his accent. “It reached the point where I felt like I was an ethnic punching bag, yet I soldiered on,” he says in his complaint.

He once walked into a packed gym at police headquarters and someone shouted: “Hey, no one called a cab!” Sandhu says the room “erupted with laughter,” which he found distressing but “forced” himself to “laugh” to “endure” the “blatant racial slur.”

When paired with an officer of Scottish background, he states that officers referred to them as the “Braveheart-Gandhi” team.

In the summer of 2001, while with intelligence services and paired with a junior South Asian officer who wore a turban, the pair was dubbed the “temple twins” and “temple patrol unit.”

In 2007, Sandhu says a senior officer remarked at a traffic accident scene that there should be no trouble sorting it out because those involved were not South Asians, who “lie all the time.”

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Noting his ability to speak Punjabi, Hindi and Urdu and Brampton’s rapidly growing, diverse population, Sandhu believes he has been an “invaluable resource” to the service and cites numerous examples from his policing career.

According to his complaint, in one 2003 investigation, Sandhu helped identify some 40 individuals from the local Indian Canadian community “involved in transborder drug trafficking,” a case that did not move forward due to “operational constraints.”

With the intelligence unit in 2004, he helped resolve “numerous risky” situations involving parts of the Sikh, Muslim and Tamil communities.

The service was “happy to make use of me in these unique and special assignments, however my commanding officers were not interested in my career development,” states Sandhu.

He alleges he was also denied training opportunities, including courses in investigative and interviewing techniques, and received few job performance reviews.

While with the service’s Diversity Relations Unit, Sandhu alleges in his complaint that former Chief Mike Metcalf, who had hand-picked him for the job, once told him that when it comes to leaders of minority groups in the community, it was his role to “keep ’em away from me.”

Sandhu states that his loyalty to Metcalf was “absolute” but in hindsight believes the former chief was “actually taking advantage” of his ethnicity and the “positive seeds” he’d sown in the community, knowing the service would look good and Metcalf would not have to be “bothered.”

Reached at his home, Metcalf said he would not comment on the case, since it was now before the tribunal. But he did say he did hand-pick Sandhu, liked him and appreciated everything he did for him. “It saddens me to see that he feels that way,” said Metcalf, who retired in 2012.

Sandhu further states in his complaint that because of all these special assignments he has taken on, his background and abilities, his further advancement has been compromised. He also says the criteria for advancement are “unknown” and the “promotional process appears to be arbitrary.”

Sandhu included in his application a list of nearly 30 community and public service awards he has received in his 24 years.

Closing in on 25 years with the service, Sandhu states that he feels “demeaned and dejected, having been confronted by my superiors with comments which, on their face, appear to be praising my contributions … but, in reality, are simply faint praise to deflect their agenda to keep me in my place.

“It causes me a great deal of consternation when I often think that I have devoted a generation of my life constantly working to enhance the image of the (service) in the eyes of one of the most diverse populations in Canada, only to learn that my superiors do not attach any meaningful worth in police terms to my accomplishments.”

Human-rights applications made by police officers who are still on the job in Ontario are rare. Some officers consider it “career suicide.”

Swadron, Sandhu’s lawyer, said it is his client’s intention and desire to remain working, as usual, while both his internal grievance and the human rights application are dealt with.

Swadron, who is being assisted by lawyer Bernadette Maheandiran, said that he hopes Sandhu’s “courage will represent a watershed happening that will benefit both the Peel Regional Police Service and the community that it serves.”