Hours after Australia revoked the visa of detained Mohammed Haneef, B T Venkatesh — the lawyer who’s helping the family of terror suspects and Haneef’s cousins Kafeel Ahmed and Sabeel Ahmed — termed the move as a gross violation of human rights. While Mr Venkatesh termed the Australian Immigration and Citizenship Ministry’s move as “abuse of the process of law”, he claimed that to begin with, the Australian courts didn’t even have the jurisdiction to try Haneef.

“The alleged crime, of having recklessly passed the SIM card on to Sabeel, happened in the UK. The Australian Government should have extradited Haneef to UK or if they are finding it uncomfortable to house him in their country, they should have deported him to India,” Mr Venkatesh said.

He said the move has made every Indian working on Australian work permits “vulnerable”. Stating that there was no accusation made with regard to any dereliction of duty by Haneef, Venkatesh claimed that the doctor was not even notified on why his visa should not be cancelled.

“They detained him illegally for 15 days... he was suspended from work and he managed to pay up and get a bail. Now, his visa has been cancelled. Year after year, we see reports from the West on human rights violations, ranking India among the top violators. What would you call this, that has happened in Australia, supposed to be a land of the educated?” he wondered.