PATIALA: A former Aam Aadmi Party activist has claimed that he had complained to the Canadian government against legislator Amarjit Singh Sandoa’s visit to that country and had sent the immigration authorities the details of legal cases against him.

However, Sandoa and his fellow AAP MLA Kultar Singh Sandhwan, on their return to India after being denied entry to Canada , claimed they had been sent back as their families were not travelling with them.

Ludhiana-based dental surgeon Amandeep Singh Bains, a former member of the AAP’s anti-corruption cell that was dismantled after the Punjab assembly polls, said he had emailed Canadian immigration minister Ahmed Hussen and the Canada Border Services Agency , which also oversees immigration enforcement, last week highlighting that Sandoa had allegedly been accused of sodomy in 2010 and was recently charged with molestation. “The Canadian immigration authorities take allegations of sexual crimes very seriously. We told them that Sandoa had earlier been accused of sodomy and was charged for allegedly molesting a woman and that a person facing criminal charges should not be allowed to enter the country,” he added.

The now-defunct anti-corruption cell had red-flagged Sandoa’s candidature for Punjab polls over allegations of sodomy made in 2010 against him. US-based Amandeep Singh Boparai, who headed the cell at the time, had warned AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal about this, but he supported Sandoa, Bains claimed.

Sandoa, on the other hand, maintained that the Canadian immigration authorities did not ask him any questions related to criminal cases. “I am not fluent in English and thus Kultarji interacted with the immigration officials on my behalf. I was only asked about the purpose of my visit and who all I would meet during my three-week stay in Canada,” he said.

The Canadian authorities, according to Kultar, “had granted visas of our entire families and since they (family members) were not with us, we were stopped by the immigration officials and questioned. We told them that our family members could not come with us as the children had to attend school. The officials also could not ascertain if our visit was personal or political, which created further confusion and then finally they told us that we could not enter Canada.”

Sandoa said he was travelling on a 10-year multiple-entry visa granted to him by the Canadian high commission in New Delhi in July 2017. At the time, Sandoa explained, the molestation case had not been registered against him. The Ropar court had granted him permission to travel abroad and he was accompanying Kultar to visit his sister, Harpreet Ghala, who lives in Ottawa. Besides, the two of them had also planned some meetings with the local unit of AAP supporters in Toronto, the Ropar MLA said.

The Sikhs for Justice, a US-based rights group that is organising the controversial Referendum 2020, welcomed Canada’s decision to deny entry to the two Punjab legislators. The group claimed that the two AAP MLAs had planned the visit to collect cash for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and said that this was unlawful under the Canadian law.

