Govt protests Canada's denial of visas

Parliament Hill is seen through a window pasted with a maple leaf in Ottawa, May 18, 2005. India has complained to Canada after several officials linked with its security establishment were denied visas, officials in New Delhi said on Thursday.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The government said on Thursday it had lodged a strong protest with Canada's top diplomat in the country after officials linked with the Indian security establishment were denied Canadian visas.

The visa rejections, on grounds of human rights records, came to light just weeks before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is to travel to Toronto for a G20 meeting.

Indian officials said about six serving and retired officials linked to the intelligence agency and security forces were denied visas over the past 18 months.

Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna told reporters that the government had called in the Canadian high commissioner to India, Joseph Caron, and conveyed its concern.

"We expect the Canadian authorities to address the situation appropriately." he said. "We are proud of our institutions, we are proud of our security forces and this has to be understood by the Canadians."

Visa requests were turned down because the applicants either worked for India's internal intelligence agency or for the army in the disputed, heavily militarised region of Kashmir.

Indian forces in Kashmir fighting a 20-year-old separatist insurgency have sometimes been accused of violating human rights, a charge the government denies.

In Ottawa, Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said Canada had respect for both the government of India and its security agencies.

"If in fact there's been any misunderstanding over individual cases determined by individual visa officers, that's obviously unfortunate," he told reporters.

"There is no Canadian blanket policy that questions the integrity of India's security agencies," he added, noting that in some cases Canadian courts had upheld the visa officers' decisions after the applicants appealed.

Indian media said this week that one applicant, a former guard with the Border Security Force, was denied a visa on the grounds that his organisation was a "notoriously violent" unit that engaged in "systematic torture."

The case prompted several other serving and former Indian security and military officials to come forward to say that their visa applications had also been rejected with "offensive remarks."

(Reporting by Krittivas Mukherjee and David Ljunggren in Ottawa; Editing by Alistair Scrutton and Ron Popeski)