Punjabi Sikhs flee for better opportunities

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CHANDIGARH, India -- Every morning, turbaned Sikh youths wanting to fly away from home at any cost line up outside New Delhi's foreign embassies.

Several embassies have signs in the Punjabi language. Others have staff who speak the native language of India's northern state of Punjab, which accounts for the highest number of immigrants from India.

To cater to the growing Punjab market, the Canadian High Commission is opening a consulate in Chandigarh today. Prime Minister Jean Chretien is scheduled to attend today's opening ceremony.

More than 60 percent of India's 100,000 permanent immigrants each year are from northwest India, especially Punjab.

Known for their grit, hard work and perseverance, many youths from rural Punjab share a single dream -- to leave India for greener pastures. To capitalize on this yearning, travel agents have opened shops all across the state.

They advertise in local newspapers offering "guaranteed visas and safe travel." Sometimes, they organize fake wedding invitations so people can be sent overseas.

So great is the desire to go to a better place and seek their fortune that the migrants sometimes agree to become human cargo. Many have crossed into Western Europe in frozen-food trucks, sometimes paying with their lives.

On Christmas Eve 1996, a 60-foot wooden boat carrying Indians -- mostly young people from Punjab -- as well as Pakistanis and Sri Lankans, sank on the high seas in the Mediterranean Sea near Malta, killing nearly 350 people. The boat was overloaded.

Survivors said they paid up to $8,000 each for the voyage.