An Indian national,who impersonated as an immigration officer to extort thousands of dollars from a compatriot woman student,was today jailed for two years by an Australian court. 30-year-old Jasbir Singh threatened the married woman with deportation,forcing her to hand over her passport and financial details to him. He also extorted 2,300 dollars from her in May 2009,a Victorian county court heard. Jasbir Singh made a series of claims and threats to the 22-year-old woman over a one-week period,including that he could guarantee her permanent residency if she agreed to marry him,the Australian Associated Press reported. Judge Jane Campton said it was ironic that Singh himself feared being deported. "I accept that you came to Australia for a better life and to follow the immigrant dream,but that it has not worked out as you expected," he was quoted as saying. "While I accept that you fear being deported,the irony is that you instilled this same fear in your victim. Your offending involved impersonation of an immigration officer and it was sustained and calculated. You persisted with threats even when on one occasion,she broke down and wept." Singh,who came to Australia on a spouse visa with his student wife in 2008,had raised concerns at his pre-sentence hearing that he would be deported and asked for a non-custodial sentence. Singh initially approached the victim when she was distributing leaflets in central Melbourne and promised to get her a better job. Over the next seven days,in what Judge Campton described as "sustained and calculated offending",Singh demanded sums of more than 1000 dollars from the woman and threatened to deport her and her husband if she did not hand over the cash and documents,the report said. He also pretended to have undertaken a credit card check,claiming she had a bad credit history and would therefore have to marry him or be deported. Singh cruelly told her that there was a new rule coming in the following month under which all spouses would be sent back to India. When the woman said she could not afford to give him any more money,Singh threatened to "do wrong things to her",Judge Campton said. He harassed her with phone calls for days,continuing his demands for 1,500 dollars to "save herself" after she had already parted with 2,300 dollars,the court heard. The woman eventually contacted police after Singh told her he was watching her 24 hours a day and would cause problems for her and her husband. Judge Campton said an unemployed Singh had significant debts and owed more than 150,000 dollars to his parents,who sold the family home in Punjab to fund their only son's trip to Australia. Singh,who pleaded guilty to one charge of blackmail,was given a 10-month non-parole period under his two-year jail term. He is the second Indian national to have been jailed within two days. On Wednesday,25-year-old student Gurdeep Singh was handed down a jail term of two-and-a-half years by an Australian court for recklessly causing serious injuries to a group of compatriots during a road rage attack.
