Canadian PM urged to raise with Indian leadership issues of excesses against Sikh nationalists

NEW YORK: A US-based Sikh advocacy group has urged Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to push India, where over the years Sikh nationalists have been held illegally and tortured, to ratify the United Nations Convention Against Torture.

Trudeau is visiting India from February 17 to 23 and is expected to sign multiple bilateral agreements.

In a statement, the Sikhs for Justice (SfJ) group cited India's practice of torturing Sikh separatists suggested that Prime Minister Trudeau should withdraw Canada from an extradition treaty with India unless the government of his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi ratifies the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuan or Degrading Treatment of Punishment (CAT).

"For the past three decades Sikhs nationalists have been held illegally and tortured by successive Indian regimes with impunity" Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a human rights lawyer and legal advisor working on behalf of Sikhs for Justice, said in a statement.

"Now is the time that PM Trudeau holds India accountable for its failure to comply with UN convention and should uphold the Canadian values" Pannun said.

"There is simply no justification, legal or otherwise, for why Canada should make itself duty-bound to extradite persons, including Canadian citizens, to India, a country refusing to subscribe to the international community's most basic norms regarding torture and ill-treatment," he added.