Canada has ordered the deportation of the widow of Joseph Pararajasingham, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian shot dead during at Christmas Mass in 2005 at packed church in the then Sri Lankan government-controlled Batticaloa town, the Toronto Star reported. Canada says 74 year old grandmother, Mrs. Sugunm Joseph, is a member “by association” of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), because her husband was a member of the TNA, the largest Tamil political party of Eezham Tamils in the island. Mr. Parajasingham was killed just weeks after President Mahinda Rajapaksa assumed office after the elections in November 2005.
Shortly after her husband’s cold-blooded – and pointedly public – assassination the then Canadian government issued a visitor’s visa so she could flee to safety in Canada, where her son and daughter are citizens.
However, in February this year Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board deemed her inadmissible, saying her role as a politician’s wife — supporting her late husband’s career and accompanying him to political events — amounted to membership in a designated terrorist organization.
Mrs. Parajasingham fears that if she is deported, she will be targeted by the paramilitaries who targeted her husband and other TNA parliamentarians, party workers and supporters.
Mrs. Parajasingham narrowly escaped with injuries when the gunmen opened fire targeting the couple at Christmas mass in 2005.
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