I do not believe that Indian consulates are somehow trying to make a database of asylees by giving visas to their children who immigrated while they were under the age of 18. The notion that somehow when they give visas to spouse or children of asylum seekers to find information on the original asylum seeker through bio pages of the passport since they contain parents and spouse info is silly. I do not have any evidence to mention to why I think contrary to everyone else where, but that is just my gut feeling. I believe Indian consulates will eventually give visas to everyone (except those couple hundred that are blacklisted).
The problem is obvious. Yes, I agree Indian government prosecuted a lot of Punjabis upto and after 1984 for unmentioned crimes, and without going through court system. Mostly it was done by encounters. I remember it happened once in our village and twice outside and many more times around. There were two different types of people going on killing spree. One was the Punjab police killing everyone and their families who was involved with free khalistan (Sikh state to be cut of India), even they ones who would come in contact with them or provided any type of aid. The other group rarely mentioned was Khalistan force, they would go on killing spree to target anyone who worked for police, like was their eyes and ears in villages. However with incidents that I know personally, they only killed targeted individuals, not their families.
Why am I mentioning all that?
Simply because all those that were or are victims of those crimes rarely made it to USA, Canada or UK. A lot of them died in encounters, or were arrested, or still live in India. Few were able to escape. But truth is it was not anywhere close to size of the population that was seeking asylum outside India. I live in a town where there are I think over 20 families, and I know none of them were actually the victims of Indian Police tracking them or Khalistan force. Most asylum seekers were fake, it is hard to swallow but that is the truth.
As far as blacklisting goes, people that are on blacklist are either convicted khalistan force members who did escape India or are the ones who later joined and advocated the movement through violent means, funding extremists in and around Indian border. Indian government is not becoming paranoid. During this summer there was a surge of activities around the Punjab border to Pakistan. A lot of firearms, and other weapons were seized, there was an indication of Khalistan movement uprising. Once I was granted visa, I went to India, and I did find out those incidents reported were true.
Indian government had intelligence reports that people from outside were coming in to support the movement. In panic, they ended up shutting down visas to all asylees.
On another note, this entry visa was not designed to thwart to asylees. This was long over due, it so happened that during implementation they were receiving too much pressure from Indian MEA, that consulates took up to themselves to decide who posted threat to India, and thus denied visas.
I think SFO consulate is tougher, because they are the ones who receive constant bash from Punjabis for their 1984 Shri Amritsar Sahib massacre. In NY we do not have that problem, consulate has not been there long enough to get fed up by these people who come and accuse him of something that happened 26 years ago. At the end of the day, consulates are humans, if they insulated regularly for something they have no control over, they will take actions that have control over. It is common sense. So far, I have not met anyone whom NY consulate denied visa. In extreme cases, they are told about inquiry that would have to be done before issuance. Please just wait.
Understand these circumstances from both sides. While reading all the posts, I did think about what if a visa applicant (asylee/derviative asylee) was to attach a police clearance certificate (issued from local police in India) to the application. Would that help ease Indian consulate fear of giving visas to wrong people? I am going to be recommending to future applicants, lets see if that speeds up the process.
