Some experts say the numbers are fuelled by unscrupulous immigration-brokers, who sell fake documents and concocted stories to well-off Indian nationals seeking greener pastures in North America.

“People who are actually refugees, people who actually suffer because of clashes between two ethnic communities, they don’t get passports, they don’t have money to come abroad,” said Shinder Purewal, a political science professor at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Surrey, B.C.