Canada court refuses stay on removal of person claiming to be SFJ member
The applicant, Gurpreet Singh, had submitted that he would “suffer irreparable harm if removed to India and will be persecuted due to his activism in India and in Canada for pro-Khalistan causes”
Toronto: A local court has denied a motion for stay of removal from Canada filed by a person who claimed to be member of the secessionist group Sikhs for Justice (SFJ).
The applicant, named Gurpreet Singh, filed the motion to defer his imminent removal from Canada. A copy of the judgment noted that the Inland Enforcement Officer at the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) refused Singh’s request to defer his removal from Canada, finding that there was “insufficient objective and compelling evidence” for doing so.
The applicant had submitted that he would “suffer irreparable harm if removed to India and will be persecuted due to his activism in India and in Canada for pro-Khalistan causes”.
He had “protested in March 2023 opposing the government’s suppression of Sikhs’ freedom of expression”. He also said he joined SFJ “which will place him at risk upon return given that other Khalistan supporters have been jailed; and, the police have attended their home in India in search of Mr Singh”.
Singh arrived in Canada in May 2023, and was issued a work permit valid until April 20, 2024. He was “subsequently convicted of assault with a weapon and received a conditional discharge and one year probation in October 2025”.
The motion was dismissed by the pressing judge in the Ottawa court. The dismissal of the motion was first flagged online by the handle Journalist V.
A record number of Indian nationals were removed from Canada by the country’s authorities this year, surpassing the high set in 2024.
In the first ten months of this year, CBSA enforced removals of 2,831 Indians, out of a total of 18,969. That figure for the ten months of 2025 is already over 41% higher than the 1997 Indians that were removed last year.
For comparison, in 2019, Indians accounted or only 625 removals out of 11,269. Indians lead when it comes to removals in progress, at 6,515 out of a total of 29,542.
The category with the highest numbers was that for non-compliance related to refugee claims, at 15,605.
In a year-end release, CBSA stated, “Of these, 841 were subject to serious inadmissibility (national security, organized crime, human rights violations, and criminality).” Those numbers are for the total figure and are not broken down by nationality. At least five persons have been removed from Canada due to their connection to extortion-related violence.
