Drive back home!

Canada took the unusual step on Wednesday of deporting a Vancouver man to India who was involved in a fatal street car race five years ago.

Bahadur Singh Bhalru, 26, was a passenger in a car that hit and killed 51-year-old Irene Thorpe during a street race in November 2000. He and his co-accused, Sukhir Singh Khosa, were convicted of criminal negligence causing death.

Bhalru served a two-year conditional sentence and is believed to be the first person in Canada to be convicted of being a participant in a high-speed fatal race, but not the driver.

He failed in his appeal to Canada's federal court for a stay of deportation on Tuesday. His lawyer, Zool Suleman, said he argued in court that his client was in danger of being harmed by corrupt police in India. Bhalru moved to Canada from India with his family in 1997 and lived in Vancouver with his parents and grandmother. He had no previous convictions.

At a press conference at Vancouver International Airport just before he boarded plane, Bhalru told reporters that although India was the country of his birth, Canada was his home, that he was a taxpayer and felt like a "political refugee." Khosa faces deportation at a later date, and is currently in the middle of appeals.