A gay man has asked the Mumbai based gay right activist Ankit Bhuptani for a recommendation letter in order to seek asylum in Canada. The person had messaged Bhuptani on social media platform Instagram, enquiring if Bhuptani ran an LGBTQ support organisation and requested a letter of support to facilitate shifting to Canada.
In his message, the man with the Instagram id ‘navdeep.singhbrar’ carefully avoided revealing his original identity and only mentioned himself as a gay male from India who wanted asylum in Canada.
The message started with, “hey I am reaching out to you guys to seek some support if you guys run LGBTQIA++ support organization or if you are able to help me” and then the man said that he identified himself as a gay male from India who sought asylum in Canada because of ‘traumatic experiences’ in India. The text read, “I know that you guys personally don’t know me. I am gay male from India and I am seeking asylum in Canada because of my traumatic experiences as gay male in India if you guys can write a support letter for me that would be really helpful, I am comfortable sharing my story with you guys if that helps to build trust. I can also share proofs. As you guys can see in my profile, I am out the closet about my sexuality and have always supported queers folks”.
However, it was later found out that the man was also a Khalistani separatist who called himself a Khalistani National.
Bhuptani supposedly had checked the Instagram profile of navdeep.singhbrar and posted the picture mentioned above which revealed that the gay male was also a Khalistan supporter. Here is another look at the picture posted on ‘navdeep.singhbrar’ instagram profile.
Ankit Bhuptani then politely declined the request of the Khalistani and stated that a letter recommendation from him will be of no value as the gay male identified himself as a Khalistani.
Notably, Ankit Bhuptani is a public speaker and a Human Rights advocate. Bhupani is also a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) professional with years of experience in diversity and inclusion space. Though he has worked with people from different backgrounds, his main focus is the welfare of the LGBTQIA+ community.