Punjab origin Canada MLA Bhullar crushed under truck

AMRITSAR/JALANDHAR: Punjab origin MLA from Canada's Alberta province Manmeet Bhullar was crushed under a truck that had lost control in the heavy snow on the highway between Calgary and Edmonton on Monday.
According to Canadian newspaper reports, Bhullar, 35, had stopped on the side to assist a motorist whose car had rolled out of control when the truck hit him.
Bhullar's grandfather had migrated to Canada from Sudhar Rajputan village near Rayya in Amritsar district in1980 and later the entire family shifted base. Bhullar became Progressive Conservative party's MLA from Calgary-Greenway in 2008 when he was just 28.
Though born and brought up in Canada, Bhullar used to visit Dera Khadoor Sahib for sewa (voluntary service) and help people in need especially the Afghan Sikhs who wanted to leave their country and settle down in India.
MLA from Baba Bakala Manjit Singh Manna said, "We have family ties with Bhullar and the news of his death is a big blow to us." He said Bhullar's family had a house at Rayya and a few of his relatives still live in Sudhar Rajputan village.
Highlighting the plight of Sikhs and Hindus in Afghanistan, Bhullar had posted a video on social networking sites in which he urged Punjabis in Canada to come forward to their rescue. "Community is facing threats either to convert or to face death. These families are very poor and have no resources to move out. They can't go to Pakistan or other countries near Afghanistan," he had said in the video message.
"There is a programme in Canada that five families can sponsor a family. Issue is that first of all they have to migrate from Afghanistan to some other country from where we can sponsor them. However, Canada had earlier given permission to some religious communities to directly sponsor families from Afghanistan and they don't need to first leave Afghanistan to go other places," he had argued.
Highlighting that Sikhs and Hindus also need similar concession, he had said, "How these families can move out of Afghanistan and stay in other neighbouring Pakistan or other countries for five-six years till the paper work is completed in Canada. Sikh and Hindu families of Afghanistan are in dire need of our help".
UNFINISHED TASK
Bhullar was also very keen to write a biography of human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra, who was eliminated by Punjab police in October 1995. Five cops were sentenced to life imprisonment for killing Khalra in custody. "He would speak about my father very passionately and met my mother twice when she visited Canada and planned to co-author a book with her on my father," said Khalra's son Janmeet Singh Khalra who is now living in Calgary. "He had even started making arrangements for starting work on the book," said Janmeet.