PM approves USP Vice Chancellor and Dr Padma Lal’s return to Fiji

Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka has moved quickly to ensure exiled University of the South Pacific Vice Chancellor, Professor Pal Ahluwalia, and Dr Padma Lal, widow of the late Professor Brij Lal, to bring the ashes of the famed academic back home from Australia.

Rabuka says he is ready to meet Dr Lal and Professor Ahluwalia personally, and he will apologise on behalf of the people of Fiji for the way they were treated.

He says he had promised that his government would bring to an end the injustices suffered by Professor Ahluwalia, and Professor Brij Lal.

The prime Minister affirmed today that the Vice Chancellor and Dr Lal are now free to enter the country.

He says Dr Lal had been prevented from coming to Fiji with her husband’s ashes for them to be taken to his birth-place at Tabia, near Labasa.

Yesterday, December 25th marks the first anniversary of Professor Brij Lal’s passing.

Rabuka said prohibition orders against Dr Brij Lal and Dr Padma Lal, as well as Professor Ahluwalia were unreasonable and inhumane and should never have been made.

He says he received a clarification today from the Department of Immigration that neither Dr Padma Lal nor Professor Ahluwalia were the subject of written prohibition orders.

The prime Minister says Professor Ahluwalia was exiled by deportation after a dispute with the Fiji government, and it created a major crisis for the USP.

He says the Professor is presently fulfilling his duties from the USP campus in Samoa.