By Indo-Asian News Service
Sydney/New Delhi/Bangalore: India Tuesday intensified diplomatic pressure on Australia over “fair and just” treatment of Muhammad Haneef, the Indian doctor charged with “reckless support” to the foiled British bombings, even as Canberra made it clear a day after his visa was revoked that Haneef would be deported.
Australian Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews, who revoked the visa, said Haneef would be deported regardless of the outcome of criminal proceedings against him – a development that angered his family back home in Bangalore with his wife slamming the move as a “face-saving” device by the Australian authorities.
The Australian government’s decision to revoke Haneef’s visa hours after he was granted bail also elicited protests from experts and leading human rights activists in that country.
New Delhi made it a point to convey its concerns over legal processes being followed by Australia in connection with Haneef’s detention by summoning Australian High Commissioner John McCarthy to the external affairs ministry.
Biren Nanda, joint secretary (South) in the external affairs ministry, met McCarthy and underlined India’s sensitivities and concerns over Haneef’s detention in an immigration centre and India stressed that Haneef be treated in a “fair and just manner”.
“We conveyed our concerns and said that while we understand that the law will take its course, in the process his human and civil rights (should not be) violated in any manner,” an official source in the ministry said.
The same message was communicated to the Australian mission earlier.
“All this, I stress, was conducted in a courteous manner. They made it absolutely clear that they had no truck with terrorism but they showed concern about the impact of certain aspects of the legal process as portrayed publicly in Australia,” the Australian envoy said after meeting Nanda.
Haneef is being investigated by Australian authorities for allegedly “assisting a terrorist act recklessly” by providing the SIM card of his mobile to his second cousin Sabeel Ahmed, also charged in the British bomb plot.
Haneef’s Australian visa was cancelled Monday soon after a Brisbane court gave bail to the Indian doctor saying he had no direct link to terrorists.
When asked whether the Australian police had more evidence than the SIM card, McCarthy replied that “these things are closely held,” but added in the same breath that “it was possible there’s more material.”
“There are suggestions) made by our immigration minister that he had substantive reasons which he will share with the defence for the decision he took yesterday,” he said.
When asked about the likelihood of Haneef’s extradition, he replied: “That is not yet an issue. The matter us still very much in the Australian legal system.”
Australian police authorities have requested for assistance from India in this case. India will decide on this issue in accordance with relevant provisions of the Indian government, the external affairs ministry said.
Back home in Bangalore, Haneef’s wife Firdous Arshiya was shocked and angry.
“The Australian authorities would have been embarrassed as my husband would come out clean after the trial because he is innocent,” Firdous told IANS reacting to Andrews’ announcement earlier in the day that Haneef would be deported whatever the outcome of the trial.
He said she wants her husband “to come back with full honour and dignity after facing the trial”.
“He will come out clean. He is innocent,” Firdous, who gave birth to the couple’s first baby, a girl, here on June 26, asserted.
Even as India summoned Australia’s envoy, human rights activists in Australia said that Canberra’s move appeared to cast aspersions on the magistrate who ordered Haneef, 27, freed on bail.
Marion Le, a renowned rights advocate and registered migration agent, told IANS: “I think that there is a problem with the way this so-called cancellation has been done.
“The visa holder is supposed to be first given a Notice of Intention to Cancel a Visa before it can be done and he then has 28 days to dispute the intention. The ombudsman has just concluded a review of other such cancellations which were done without proper notice and they had to be restored.”
She added: “Technically it is a winnable case.”
Haneef, charged in the failed British bomb plots, was granted bail by Brisbane Magistrate Jacqui Payne on the condition he provides a surety of AU$10,000 and reports to the Southport police station in Queensland state thrice a week.
Payne ruled Haneef should be released into the community pending his trial for supporting a terrorist organisation.
Without a valid visa, Haneef, who was arrested July 2, will be deported to India once criminal proceedings are finalised. His lawyer Peter Russo has planned to delay posting bail pending the appeal.
Kirk McKenzie, a prominent lawyer and member of the Human Rights Committee and Law Society of New South Wales, was equally concerned.
“The government¹s immediate cancellation of his visa may be justified as a matter of law but it seems to be implied criticism of the magistrate¹s bail decision,” he said.
“I think this is more about the precarious political position of the government, with opinion polls predicting a landslide victory to the Labour opposition at the elections which are due before the end of the year.
Meanwhile, the Australia India Business Council (AIBC) has appealed to government, business and community leaders as well as the media to make every effort to ensure that the interrogation of Haneef, an Indian, does not have an unreasonable and unfair negative impact on the many Australian citizens, permanent residents, temporary business visa holders, tourists and students of Indian origin living in Australia.
The AIBC statement urges policy makers, employers, service providers and opinion leaders not to introduce, promote or tolerate any discriminatory practices towards people of Indian origin in relation to employment, migration, citizenship, visa processing, admission into educational institutions and access to services.