TORONTO, May 10: The deportation of one of the hijackers of the Air India plane to Pakistan in 1984 has again been deferred, this time by an Ontario judge.

Parminder Singh Saini, 53, was to be deported to India May 5. But Justice Paul Rouleau stopped the deportation after he heard Defence lawyer Lorne Waldman who argued that his client faced torture and possible death if sent to India. Justice Rouleau's order will keep Saini in Canada for several months while the court examines his case. Saini was in a Pakistani jail for 10 years before he was deported in 1994, after which he entered Canada under an assumed name. He was detained by Canadian authorities eight months after arriving in Toronto, according to published reports. Last June he was ordered deported to India without a hearing in his refugee claim because Immigration Minister Lucienne Robillard designated him as a ``danger to Canada.'' The orders were postponed.

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