The facts as submitted by the complainant 2.1 The complainant is from the Punjab province in India. His religion is Sikh. His wife and three children continue to live in the Punjab. 2.2 According to an “investigation report” dated 12 March 1993 by Mr. S.S., a human rights lawyer at Patiala (Punjab), which substantially relies on the testimony of the complainant’s father, his daughter and other villagers, two armed men came to the home of the complainant’s family in April 1991 asking the complainant for food while pointing a gun at him. They remained for half an hour. Later that night, the police arrested the complainant accusing him of harbouring terrorists. He was allegedly detained in a special torture cell where he was interrogated and beaten by the police. He was released after two days when his father paid a bribe. 2.3 Pursuant to the same report, the complainant was arrested a second time in September 1991 after six family members of a police officer had been killed in a nearby village. The complainant was detained in an unknown place where he was allegedly subjected to torture by the police again. He was released at the intervention of a local politician and subsequently went to Jaipur (Rajasthan) in order to hide from the Punjab police. The police reportedly continued to harass his family, and on one occasion arrested the complainant’s brother. When the police started to investigate his whereabouts in Jaipur, the complainant decided to leave the country following his father’s advice. 2.4 On 1 September 1992, the complainant left India for Brazil, then travelled to Mexico, and entered the United States on 22 September 1992. On 30 October 1992, he entered Canada and applied for refugee status. When he was returned to the United States, the United States immigration authorities asked him to leave the country before 29 November 1992. The complainant subsequently remained illegally within the United States. He failed to report for an examination of his refugee application which was scheduled for 17 August 1993 at the Canadian border post at Lacolle. 2.5 On 24 November 1993, the Indian Consulate in New York issued a passport for the complainant. 2.6 The complainant re-entered Canada on 4 August 1994 at Vancouver and made a new refugee claim in Montreal on 16 August 1994. On 13 October 1994, a removal order was issued against him by the Canadian immigration authorities. He was refused Convention refugee status by the Convention Refugee Determination Division of the Immigration and Refugee Board on 4 November 1996, but applied for leave to apply for judicial review of that decision. Leave was denied by the Federal Court of Canada on 29 May 1998. 2.7 In the meantime, the complainant filed an application in the Post-Determination Refugee Claimants in Canada (PDRCC) class. Together with that application he submitted a copy of a document resembling a warrant for arrest which, according to that document, had been issued against him by the Indian authorities on 8 May 1994. His application was rejected by letter of 10 March 1997 informing him that the removal order had become effective and that he had to leave Canada before 16 April 1997. The post-claim determination officer’s notes to the file state that the copy of the arrest warrant had only been provided at a late stage of the proceedings and that no explanation was given as to why the arrest warrant had been issued in 1994 purportedly 147