A Mississauga, Ont., man says he was detained at the airport in Amritsar, India, on New Year’s Eve without food or medical attention for 36 hours before Indian officials kicked him out of the country.

Gurcharan Singh Banwait, 77, a Canadian citizen for nearly 50 years, says he travels to India often for his health charity, the International Punjabi Foundation, and had never had a problem until his last trip.

“It was painful,” Banwait told CBC Toronto. “There they put me in a room, locked me up and put two security guards with guns.”

Banwait, who recently underwent heart surgery and has a herniated disc in his spine, said he was not given a place to lie down and the cold weather worsened his back pain. He also claims that he was not allowed to go to the toilet without help, and that an Indian officer called him “Khalistani”, a term used for supporters of Khalistan, the Sikh separatist movement.

“I felt embarrassed, insulted,” he said.

Those who have closely followed the breakdown of Canada-India relations in recent years say it is an example of a growing trend in India to harass and blacklist Sikhs and journalists, raising concerns that the country is using visas as a tool for foreign interference.

A Mississauga man says he’s speaking out because he worries other Sikh Canadians could be similarly detained or blacklisted, but don’t know until they buy an expensive ticket, travel more than 14 hours around the world and potentially be detained in detention.

“Nobody listens to you. They’ll put you in jail and you’re gone,” Banwait said.

CBC Toronto sent multiple requests to the Indian Consulate and High Commission in Canada, as well as the Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Indian High Commission declined to comment by phone, while officials in New Delhi did not respond.

Global Affairs Canada is aware of the situation but cannot intervene in immigration matters on behalf of Canadians, a spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

“Each country or territory decides who can enter or exit across its borders,” the statement said.

India pursues diaspora ‘with full force’: Lawyer

For decades, India has used its central undesirable list – better known as the blacklist – to mark a person as inadmissible into the country.

The number of blacklisted Canadians has been rising since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused the Indian government of playing a role in the 2023 killing of Canadian Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, according to Balpreet Singh, legal counsel and spokesperson for World Sikh Organization Canada.

Global News’ December survey discovered agents of Indian proxies asked Sikh Canadians to sign statements expressing their “deep respect” for India in order to obtain a visa.

Indian diplomats and consular officials used their discretion to grant or deny visas to pressure people into conducting surveillance or becoming informants, sources told CBC News last year.

“India’s use of visas to manipulate people is foreign interference,” Singh said. “Forcing people here in Canada to do or not do certain things in order to get visas is just wrong.”

– This is a practice that really needs to be put to an end.

The Indian government is increasingly targeting individuals who criticize government policies or are linked to movements such as Khalistan, according to Raman Sohi, an immigration lawyer in Vancouver.

“The Indian government has the resources, they have the means to track people outside of India. They are using those means with full force,” Sohi said.

India does not notify blacklisted individuals and often does not give them a reason, Sohi said.

“I can ban you right now,” he said. “They can detain you … they can actually start prosecuting you there.”

Sohi says the Hindu nationalist ruling party under Prime Minister Narendra Modi is “trying to silence critics” and doesn’t expect the problem to improve.

“They are very aggressive,” he said.

As for Banwait, he is not sure whether his Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) card, which allows the holder a multi-purpose, multiple-entry, lifetime visa, is valid or not.

He admits that his deportation could have been due to his arrest in 1986 on charges related to the plot to bomb the flight, but says that is unlikely since he was acquitted and has traveled to India without incident in the decades since.

He suspects it was his attendance at an event in Punjab in December on the history of the Sikh empire.

Day and night I think: what did I do wrong? I didn’t do anything, he said.

He says he stays awake wondering if he will be permanently barred from his homeland and, if so, what that would mean for his hospital, property and charity in India and his family members who want to visit.

A blacklisted American journalist is suing the Indian government

Angad Singh, an American freelance journalist and producer, is blacklisted.

He fought in court to know why his OCI was canceled and he was sent back to New York from Delhi in 2022.

According to court documents, Singh worked as an assistant producer on VICE’s award-winning documentary “India Burning,” which was about India’s new anti-Muslim citizenship laws.

The Indian government sees the story as “anti-national propaganda to defame the country,” according to court documents.

“What we’re seeing is (visas) being used as a weapon against certain sections of the wider Indian diaspora, against certain minority groups, against those who might try to speak truth to power,” Singh said.

Singh is continuing his legal battle against the government’s decision in the Delhi high court.