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Wednesday, September 20, 2023

 CBC As It Happens·Q&A

Trudeau went public with India allegations because it was going to come out in the media: minister 

Harjit Sajjan says Trudeau wanted to ensure Canadians had 'accurate information'

Sheena Goodyear · CBC Radio · 
A man with a beard sits at a desk with a microphone. Canadian flags are standing in the background.
Harjit Sajjan, Canada's minister of emergency preparedness, says his government went public with allegations linking India to a murder on Canadian soil to ensure Canadians had 'accurate information' about the case. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press)

Canada's minister of emergency preparedness says the prime minister publicly implicated India in the murder of a Canadian citizen because he learned the story was going to come out in the media.

Justin Trudeau stood in Parliament on Monday and announced: "Canadian security agencies have been actively pursuing credible allegations of a potential link between agents of the government of India and the killing of a Canadian citizen, Hardeep Singh Nijjar."

The Sikh leader was shot dead outside a Sikh temple in Surrey, B.C., on June 18. India has vehemently denied involvement in his death and called Canada's allegations "absurd."

Nijjar was a supporter of a Sikh homeland in the form of an independent Khalistani state. India branded him a terrorist and accused him of leading a militant separatist group. His supporters deny this.

Minister Harjit Sajjan, the Liberal MP for Vancouver South, says the investigation into Nijjar's death is still ongoing, but Trudeau wanted to ensure Canadians had "the accurate information" about the story before it made headlines. Here is part of Sajjan's conversation with As It Happens host Nil Köksal.

What evidence is there to support the allegations the prime minister is making?

First and foremost, there is a police investigation currently undergoing and they're independent to conduct their investigation. It would be very inappropriate for me to discuss anything about that.

Why not wait until after the RCMP has finished its investigation? Why did the prime minister come out with what he said before that?

It was important for the prime minister to make the statement that he did because some information was going to ... come out within the media.

The safety of Canadians is very important and making sure that they have the accurate information. And that's one of the reasons why the prime minister went out with this statement.

You can't share the evidence with us. But how specific [have] the prime minister and other officials ... been able to be with the Indian government? Because you've heard what they've said. They've called this all "absurd" and are rejecting it outright.

Our government officials at various agencies have spoken with their Indian counterparts on this, and the prime minister has also raised this.

And I also just want to clarify one thing based on your question. When it comes to the evidence, it's the police that hold the evidence. And they, alone, decide the next actions on this. 

Do you worry, though, that the prime minister coming out with this before that investigation is finished … has hampered any potential attempts to get the kind of co-operation you need from India in this?

I can assure you that the decision for the prime minister to go out … was done with the full consultation of the appropriate agencies involved. 

And, again, we would prefer not to have to come out, but because if there were stories that were going to be coming out, it's important for the prime minister to make it very clear what is taking place based on, you know, the amount of information that could be provided.

Making sure to give calm to Canadians is an absolute priority for us. And this is one of the reasons why the prime minister went out, is to give confidence and calm to Canadians — and just in case somebody is trying to use certain information to divide Canadians, which we have seen many times in the past.

A group of Sikh men speak informally to each other for a posed photograph.
Hardeep Singh Nijjar, pictured in 2019, centre right, was fatally shot outside a Sikh temple in June. The federal government says Canadian authorities have credible evidence that 'agents of the government of India' were involved in the killing. (Ben Nelms/CBC)

What do you say, though, to Canadians who worry that things aren't calm and that they may not be able to be protected by police? Because, as you well know,  Hardeep Singh Nijjar was warned by CSIS. The community in British Columbia, the Sikh community, people at the heart of this story, have said they have repeatedly told your government that something like this could and would happen. So why wasn't more done to protect him?

First of all, these types of operational questions will have to be answered by the RCMP. But one thing I can tell you [is] when it comes to the work that is done, there's a lot of work that happens also behind the scenes. Some can be talked about, but most of it can't. And I can say with absolute surety that when there is credible information, a threat to someone, our intelligence agencies and our police agencies do act swiftly on this. 

And right now, because there is an ongoing investigation, we can't talk about the details of the case, obviously.

WATCH | Members of Sikh community react to Trudeau's announcement: 


Shock, anger as Trudeau links India to killing of Surrey Sikh leader

1 day ago
Duration10:
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says India may be responsible for the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a prominent Sikh community leader in Surrey. Some of his supporters in Surrey say they hope justice will be served.

[Gurpreet Singh], an independent journalist who had interviewed Mr. Nijjar, told us last night on the program that {Mr. Nijjar] had been given a bullet-proof vest. He was allowed to use that. So were there not enough credible claims to protect him further?

I'm not going to get into details of what took place and what did not take place. But I can assure you and Canadians, when there is credible information by our intelligence agencies, they work very closely with the police agencies to make sure that the individual has the important information.

Former B.C. premier and former federal Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh was speaking to our colleagues at CBC News. And while he doesn't condone, he said, what has happened here and this killing, he said that your government has become, as he put it, a friend of the Khalistanis, not of India. 

So do you feel Canada is doing enough to draw a line between allowing freedom of expression in this country, but also making sure that it is not fuelling further conflict?

With absolute due respect to the former colleague, I absolutely disagree with his assertion on this. 

I'll be honest with you. My face turns blue [from] how many times we have said this. I don't know what else, sometimes, what we can do. The prime minister, myself, many other ministers, we've been very clear on our approach with this.

We absolutely will fight for the right for any Canadian to express their viewpoint peacefully. Anybody who crosses the line is absolutely unacceptable. 

We do not advocate for the break up of any other country, and especially India, and I've been very public about this in the past. 

I feel for all the Canadians who have constantly been questioned on their loyalty and who they are, and in some cases just because they bring up a certain viewpoint that they might have, and they do it in a peaceful manner, and they get labelled in a certain way.

We, as a very strong democracy, want to protect our independence, our police, our judicial system and freedom of the press and also the freedom to express their viewpoints peacefully. 

With files from CBC News. Interview produced by Morgan Passi. Q&A edited for length and clarity

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Justin Trudeau Accuses India of a Killing on Canadian Soil

The Canadian leader said agents of India had assassinated a Sikh community leader in British Columbia in June. India called the accusation “absurd.”


India Accused of Killing Sikh Leader in Canada

Justin Trudeau said it was “unacceptable,” and the Canadian foreign minister said Ottawa had expelled a top Indian diplomat.

Over the past number of weeks, Canadian security agencies have been actively pursuing credible allegations of a potential link between agents of the government of India and the killing of a Canadian citizen, Hardeep Singh Nijjar. Any involvement of a foreign government in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil is an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty. In the strongest possible terms, I continue to urge the government of India to cooperate with Canada to get to the bottom of this matter. We’ve been clear we will not tolerate any form of foreign interference. As of today, and as a consequence, we’ve expelled a top Indian diplomat from Canada.

By Ian Austen and Vjosa Isai
Ian Austen reported from Ottawa, and Vjosa Isai from Toronto.
NEW YORK TIMES
Sept. 18, 2023

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada said on Monday that “agents of the government of India” had carried out the assassination of a Sikh community leader in British Columbia in June, an explosive allegation that is likely to further sour relations between the two nations.

Speaking in the House of Commons, Mr. Trudeau said that he had raised India’s involvement in the shooting of the Sikh leader, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, directly with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Group of 20 summit meeting earlier this month “in no uncertain terms.” He said the allegation was based on intelligence gathered by the Canadian government.

“Any involvement of a foreign government in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil is an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty,” Mr. Trudeau told lawmakers. He said Canada would pressure India to cooperate with the investigation into the killing of Mr. Nijjar, who advocated Sikh separatism.

Mélanie Joly, the foreign minister, later announced that Canada had expelled an Indian diplomat whom she described as the head of India’s intelligence agency in Canada.

India’s foreign ministry rejected the Canadian allegations on Tuesday morning as “absurd” and politically motivated, saying that Canada had long provided shelter to “Khalistani terrorists and extremists” who threaten India’s security. Khalistan is what Sikh separatists call the independent state they seek to create.

The ministry said that Mr. Modi had “completely rejected” the allegations when Mr. Trudeau presented them to him. “We urge the government of Canada to take prompt and effective legal action against all anti-India elements operating from their soil,” the ministry said in a statement.

It later said that it had moved to expel a senior Canadian diplomat based in India.

The allegation that India’s government was involved in a political killing in Canada is likely to further corrode relations between the two countries. Earlier this month, Canada suspended negotiations on a trade deal with India that were scheduled to have been concluded this year — because of the assassination allegations, it now appears. During the G20, Mr. Modi excluded Mr. Trudeau from the list of leaders with whom he held formal bilateral meetings.

Mr. Trudeau said many Canadians of Indian origin — they make up about 4 percent of the population — had been angered by the killing and in some cases feared for their personal safety. There are about 1.4 million Canadians of Indian heritage, many of whom are Sikhs; they include Jagmeet Singh, the leader of the opposition New Democratic Party, which is keeping Mr. Trudeau’s minority government in power. Singh is a common surname and middle name in Punjab.

Mr. Nijjar, 45, was shot near a Sikh temple in Surrey, British Columbia. At a news conference in June, investigators from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said he had been ambushed by masked men, but would not say whether the attack appeared politically motivated.

Mr. Nijjar was known for his advocacy of the creation of an independent Sikh nation, Khalistan, that would include parts of India’s Punjab state, and India had declared him a wanted terrorist.

Citing the police investigation, neither Ms. Joly nor Dominic LeBlanc, the minister of public safety, offered any details about Indian involvement in the killing. But Mr. LeBlanc said that Jody Thomas, Mr. Trudeau’s national security adviser, as well as the head of Canada’s intelligence service, had traveled over the past few weeks “to confront the Indian intelligence agencies with these allegations.”

It was unclear from the two minister’s remarks how forthcoming the Indian government has been or what cooperation, if any, it has offered.

Ms. Joly said she planned to discuss India’s actions during meetings with Canada’s allies after she travels to New York this week for the United Nations General Assembly.

The announcement came on the same day that a judge opened a public inquiry into interference by foreign governments. It was prompted by allegations that China is meddling in Canadian politics, but Mr. LeBlanc said that reviewing India’s actions are within the inquiry’s mandate. “Obviously these allegations are at a much more serious level,” he said.

Mr. Nijjar was vocal about the threats to his life, which were shared with Canada’s spy agency, the World Sikh Organization of Canada, a nonprofit, said in a statement.

“If these allegations are true, they represent an outrageous affront to Canada’s sovereignty,” said Pierre Poilievre, leader of the Conservative Party. “Our citizens must be safe from extrajudicial killings of all kinds, most of all from foreign governments.”

Mr. Singh, the New Democratic Party leader, broke with protocol to address the House of Commons in Punjabi as well English and said he had spoken with Mr. Nijjar’s son. “I could hear the pain of that loss in his voice,” Mr. Singh said. “I can only imagine how much more painful it is going to be knowing this potential connection.”

Rumors about possible retribution by India against those critical of its government have stoked fear within the Sikh expatriate community and discouraged many from returning to that country, Mr. Singh said. But Canada, he said, had been seen as “a beacon of safety.”

“That safety and security that so many Canadians feel has now been rocked,” he said.

Sikhs are a relatively small religious group, with about 25 million adherents worldwide, most of them in India.

A violent Sikh insurgency that took shape in India in the 1980s killed a number of government officials. The government responded with widespread human rights abuses, including torture and extrajudicial killings, according to human rights groups.

In 1984, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi sent the military to storm the Golden Temple in Amritsar, the holiest site in Sikhism, which had been fortified by heavily armed Sikh militants. The government said hundreds of people were killed in the clash, but others put the death toll in the thousands.

In retaliation, two of the prime minister’s Sikh body guards assassinated her, prompting riots in which thousands of Sikhs were killed.

In 1985 a bomb exploded on an Air India flight from Toronto to London, killing all 329 people on board. It remains Canada’s deadliest terrorist attack and worst mass murder.

After a prolonged investigation and trial, two Sikh separatists from British Columbia were acquitted in 2005 of murder and conspiracy in that explosion as well as a second blast that killed two baggage handlers in Japan. Many witnesses had either died — some were murdered — or apparently been intimidated out of testifying. Wiretaps by Canada’s intelligence agency had been erased before they could be used as evidence and physical evidence was destroyed in the blast.

A third Sikh man was found guilty of manslaughter for his role in making the bombs and, later, of perjury at the murder trial.

About a year ago, Ripudaman Singh Malik, one of the men acquitted in 2005, was shot to death. Two men were later arrested, but the killing rattled the Sikh community in British Columbia.

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Facebook is Blocking Canadians’ Posts About the Assassination of a BC Sikh Leader. Their Posts Were Targeted by India’s Government.

Canadian Sikh Facebook users receive notifications that their posts are being taken down because they’re in violation of Indian law



by Rumneek Johal, Reporter
PRESS PROGRESS
September 18, 2023

Canadian Sikh Facebook users posting about the assassination of a Sikh community leader are seeing posts disappear and accounts suspended in response to legal demands by the Indian government.

Many Facebook posts and pages that have been flagged as being in violation of Indian law involve content relating to the legacy of Bhai Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh leader who was assassinated outside of a Surrey gurdwara in June of this year.

On Monday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told the House of Commons that Canadian intelligence was pursuing “credible allegations” that “agents of the Government of India” had assassinated Nijjar in Surrey, BC this summer.

“Over the past number of weeks, Canadian security agencies have been actively pursuing credible allegations of a potential link between agents of the Government of India and the killing of a Canadian citizen, Hardeep Singh Nijjar,” Trudeau said. “Any involvement of a foreign government in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil is an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty.”

Since Nijjar’s assassination in June, a number of Canadian Sikh Facebook users say their posts about the community leader have been censored or unpublished by Meta following interventions by the Indian government.

BC Sikhs, a Facebook page that represents British Columbia’s Sikh community, currently remains “unpublished” after admins received a notice that the page was removed for failing to follow Meta’s standards on “dangerous individuals and organizations.”

“Your page has been unpublished,” reads a notice sent to BC Sikhs that was reviewed by PressProgress. “This is because BC Sikhs goes against our Community Standards on dangerous individuals and organizations.”



BC Sikhs (Facebook)

Certain posts were also flagged or taken down, requiring the BC Sikhs account to appeal Facebook’s decision.

One Facebook post which was restricted includes a photo of an event promoting a discussion on “the legacy of Bhai Hardeep Singh Nijjar.”

BC Sikhs was notified that “access to (their) photo has been restricted due to a legal request.”

“Access to your photo has been restricted within India because Facebook has been notified by the authorities under an emergency order pursuant to Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000,” the notice states.

“If you have any questions, please contact the appropriate authorities for further information.”


BC Sikhs (Facebook)

The Information Technology Act in India allows the government to block content “in the interests of the defence, sovereignty, integrity, or security of India or its relations with foreign states, public order, or the incitement of a cognisable offence relating to these categories.”

Other Sikh Facebook users based in Canada have reported similar experiences.

Sarbraj Singh Kahlon, a Vancouver journalist with Radio Punjab, told PressProgress his Facebook account was restricted after he posted about protests about Nijjar’s assassination at the Indian Consulate in Vancouver and posts commemorating the anniversary of his death.

Meta did not respond to multiple requests for comment from PressProgress, but did request additional time to look into the matter.

After PressProgress brought the issue to Meta’s attention, BC Sikhs said their appeals were suddenly reversed and their page and posts were restored.

“We found that our review team made a mistake taking your post down,” read an updated notice sent September 17. “Our priority is keeping the community safe and respectful, so sometimes we have to take precautions.”


BC Sikhs (Facebook)

“The BC Sikhs social media pages have been an active community news and events outlet for almost 20 years,” an admin for the BC Sikh’s Facebook page told PressProgress.

“The recent restriction of our content, and unpublishing of our Facebook page, is a result of direct interference by Indian intelligence agencies.”

The group said “decades of India’s interference in Canadian politics has to end here.”

In a statement to PressProgress, the World Sikh Organization also accused India of foreign interference by targeting members of Canada’s Sikh diaspora who are critical of the Indian government.

“The Prime Minister of Canada has publicly said what Sikhs in Canada have known for decades- India actively targets Sikhs in Canada,” World Sikh Organization President Tejinder Singh Sidhu said in a statement.

“India cannot be allowed to disregard the rule of law and the sovereignty of foreign states. The Sikh community will not be intimidated or frightened by the actions of the Government of India.”

The Canadian government announced an inquiry into foreign interference earlier this year, with a preliminary report to be tabled in February.

The inquiry’s terms of reference do not mention India by name, but states that “the commissioner will examine and assess interference by China, Russia and other foreign states or non-state actors.”

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Hardeep Nijjar met CSIS every week before killing that Trudeau links to India: son

Balraj Nijjar says he also attended a meeting between his father and the RCMP last year in which they were told about threats to his father's life


Nono Shen and Brenna Owen
VANCOUVER SUN
Published Sep 19, 2023 • 
The son of Sikh community leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar says his father was meeting regularly with Canadian intelligence officers in the months before he was shot dead in British Columbia, in a killing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says has been credibly linked to India. Police officers attend the scene of a shooting outside of the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara Sahib temple, in Surrey, B.C., Monday, June 19, 2023.
 PHOTO BY JENNIFER GAUTHIER /The Canadian Press

The son of Sikh community leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar says his father met regularly with Canadian intelligence officers in the months before he was shot dead in B.C. last June, a killing that’s been credibly linked to India, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told the House of Commons on Monday.

Balraj Singh Nijjar, 21, said his father had been meeting with Canadian Security Intelligence Service officers “once or twice a week,” including one or two days before the June 18 murder, with another meeting scheduled for two days after his death.

The meetings had started in February and had increased in frequency in the following three or four months, he said in an interview on Tuesday.

He said he also attended a meeting between his father and the RCMP last year in which they were told about threats to Nijjar’s life.

His father was advised to “stay at home,” he said.

Hardeep Singh Nijjar — a vocal supporter of the Khalistan movement that advocates for a separate Sikh homeland inIndia’s Punjab region — was gunned down by two masked men in the parking lot of Surrey’s Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara, where he was president.

Trudeau told Parliament that intelligence services were investigating “credible” information about “a potential link” between India’s government and the killing.

India’s government has denied the accusation as “absurd and motivated.”

Over the years, Balraj Singh Nijjar said his father had received hundreds of threatening messages telling him to stop his advocacy for Sikh independence.

“If you don’t stop talking about Khalistan, we’ll kill you. We know where you live. We know you go to this gurdwara,” he said of the messages.

He said they would always report the threats to the police, but neither he nor his father wanted to hide, and they felt protected under Canadian law.

“We weren’t worried about safety because we weren’t doing anything wrong. We were just using freedom of speech,” he said.

Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a U.S.-based spokesman for the group Sikhs for Justice and a close associate of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, said Nijjar had asked Canadian authorities whether he should wear a bulletproof vest in the weeks before he was gunned down.

The New York-based lawyer said Nijjar asked about the vest in April or May, and the agencies responded to the effect that they could not provide one.

Nijjar had also told him a year earlier that Canadian authorities had informed him of a threat to his life, Pannun said in an interview on Tuesday.

He said that call came shortly after the July 2022 shooting death of Ripudaman Singh Malik, who had been acquitted in the 1985 Air India terrorist bombings.

A 2005 Canadian government report concluded that the bombings that killed 331 people were carried out as a result of a conspiracy by Sikh Khalistani separatists that was “planned and executed” in Canada. Only one man, bomb maker Inderjit Singh Reyat, was ever convicted.

“He called me and (for the) first time specifically told me that Canadian agencies told him that the next target could be Nijjar,” Pannun said, referring to his conversation with Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

He said the Canadian authorities told Nijjar he shouldn’t go to his gurdwara at his usual times, and he should avoid being seen in public.

Pannun said he wasn’t aware of any precautions Nijjar may have taken to protect his personal security, but he believes his friend chose to go about his daily life despite the warnings because his campaigning in Canada was peaceful.

“Since the Khalistan referendum is a peaceful and a democratic process, and he is in Canada, where freedom of speech and expression is inherently a democratic, fundamental right,” Pannun said.

India takes a very different view and had previously accused both Pannun and Hardeep Nijjar of terrorism and separatism.

Nijjar had been the main co-ordinator in Canada for an unofficial global referendum on Sikh independence in India, Pannun said.

He said there are two versions of Nijjar in the public eye — one concocted by the Indian government accusing him of terrorism, and the true version.

“He was peacefully advocating for (the) Khalistan referendum.”

Outside that work, he said Nijjar helped support community members in need.

A media officer for the RCMP in B.C. said a request to confirm the warnings and advice given to Nijjar had been forwarded to the Mounties’ national headquarters. CSIS did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

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‘His spirit is still among us’: Sikhs defiant in Canada city where activist was murdered

Colleagues say they knew Hardeep Singh Nijjar could be targeted by India for his role in Canada as a community leader


Sarah Berman in Surrey, British Columbia
THE GUARDIAN
Wed 20 Sep 2023 17.40 BST


Justin Trudeau may have shocked the world this week when he linked “agents of India” to the murder of a Canadian citizen in British Columbia, but colleagues who worked alongside Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar before he was shot dead this summer said the link was already clear.


“We’re not surprised,” said Gurkeerat Singh, a volunteer at the Surrey temple that Nijjar led from 2019 until his death on 18 June. “The whole community knew who was behind it. We knew that Hardeep Singh Nijjar could be targeted by the Indian state for his role as a community leader advocating for human rights and for a separate Sikh state.”

Surrey, British Columbia is a sprawling suburb outside Vancouver, hemmed in by highways to the east and west, the Fraser River to the north, and the United States border to the south. Since the 1980s the area has become a landing pad for many diasporic communities.

It is home to one of the largest Sikh communities outside of India, and the Guru Nanak Gurdwara – where Nijjar served as president – is a prominent global voice advocating for the creation of a Sikh homeland. But it also plays a key role in local life: every day the temple fills with hundreds of people seeking meals, disaster relief, and other kinds of aid.

Named after the religion’s founder, the temple sits on a deep lot behind blue and white pointed arches, with a silver dome and flagpoles rising above the front gates.

Worshippers at the gurdwara on Tuesday expressed overlapping relief, anger, hope and fear in reaction to Trudeau’s comments: relief that India’s alleged foreign interference was publicly named; anger that more wasn’t done to protect Nijjar; hope that Canada would take further action to hold perpetrators to account; and fear for personal safety as global tensions rise.

One temple volunteer, who asked not to be named, said that Canadian Sikhs with family in India were struggling.

“​​We are grateful somebody has finally stepped up and spoken for minorities in India,” she said. “Now obviously there are safety concerns. So, [for] Canadians that are going to be travelling to India, is it safe for us? Can we go? What’s going to happen if we go?”

On Tuesday, Canada issued new travel advice for India, warning of an increased threat of terror attacks in the country. On Wednesday, India followed suit, warning its nationals of “growing anti-India activities and politically condoned hate crimes” in Canada.

When Trudeau made his statement to parliament late on Monday, Nijjar’s supporters were set to gather for an evening prayer at the site of his assassination, a parking lot behind the gurdwara.

When the crowd started to gather on Monday night, news of the prime minister’s allegations had already filtered through the community. The prayer circle expanded to include performance, poetry reading, speeches and political organising.

“The way we deal with loss in our Sikh community is very different. Yes, there’s sadness,” Singh explained, “but if his sacrifice is what led to India’s hypocrisy and India’s brutality to be unmasked in front of the whole world, then his sacrifice is something to be celebrated.”

Three months after Nijjar’s death, no new president has replaced him. Volunteers who attended Monday’s gathering say there were both tears and smiles as the community celebrated its central pillar. Rows of yellow and blue Khalistani flags and a billboard bearing his likeness framed the scene.

“We feel like his spirit, his strength, is still among us,” Singh said.

Nijjar, who was born in Punjab, moved in the mid-90s to Canada, where he married, had two sons and opened a plumbing business. He was a naturalised Canadian citizen.

In 2020 Indian authorities accused Nijjar of belonging to a proscribed group and designated him as a “terrorist”. Last year, officials accused him of involvement in an alleged attack on a Hindu priest, and announced a cash reward for information leading to his arrest.

His colleagues remember him as a hard-working servant of his community, who would wake up before dawn to wash dishes or clean bathrooms before an early morning program at the temple. “He would be the first one to show up here and the last one to leave,” Singh recalled.

Sikh diaspora activism has long been a source of tension between India and Canada, with Delhi repeatedly accusing Ottawa of tolerating “terrorists and extremists”.

In the 1980s Sikh separatists were linked to attacks on India’s prime minister and Air India flight 182, which killed 329 people. Thousands of Sikhs were killed in retaliatory riots.

Gurkeerat Singh, 30, wasn’t born when these violent events took place, but he knows a “terrorist” stigma still lingers. Some Canadian Sikhs who oppose India’s crackdown on religious minorities don’t support an ethno-national solution, either.

Instead of silencing the separatists, Nijjar’s murder seems to be giving new life to the exiled political movement, he said.

The Guru Nanak temple’s walls are lined with posters asking members to vote “YES” for Punjabi independence.

“The Indian state might have thought that by killing one individual they might put a hold on this cause or put fear inside people,” Singh said. “For us, the people who were close to him, it gives us more inspiration.”

The temple hosted a non-binding separatist vote last month, and there are plans to host a second vote on 29 October. The Sikhs for Justice campaign, which has collected ballots in communities around the globe since 2021, aims to hold a vote in India by 2025.

Moninder Singh, spokesperson for the BC Sikh Gurdwara Council and a close friend of Nijjar, spoke to supporters in a video message on Monday.

“The underlying feeling is one of frustration and anger,” he said. “Nobody did anything for his protection. Nobody did anything to hold India accountable in any which way.”

Moninder Singh also raised concerns about ongoing intelligence sharing between Canada and India.

But amid the frustration, anger, and fears that another attack could follow, Singh said there was also a glimmer of hope. “Canada has never called India out like this before,” he said. “The people behind this attack on Canadian sovereignty should be held accountable no matter how high-ranking they are in the Indian government.”

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Who is Hardeep Singh Nijjar, the Sikh leader Indian agents allegedly killed?

By Uday Rana Global News
Updated September 19, 2023 

WATCH: Taking a closer look at Hardeep Singh Nijjar, his killing, and the centre of this diplomatic storm.



As the House of Commons reconvened on Monday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau informed Parliament that there were “credible allegations” of a “potential link” between “agents of the government of India” and the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh leader who Trudeau described as a Canadian citizen.

As a consequence, an Indian diplomat was expelled from Canada.

The man at the centre of the diplomatic storm was gunned down in June this year, and the investigation remains open into his murder. On June 18, Nijjar, 45, was found suffering from multiple gunshot wounds inside a vehicle outside the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara just before 8:30 p.m. on June 18.

The RCMP’s Integrated Homicide Investigation Team (IHIT) initially sought two suspects described as “heavier-set males wearing face coverings.” However, they later said the men were not acting alone.
On Monday, Trudeau confirmed that authorities were investigating links between the murder and people linked to the Indian government. The Indian government has vehemently rejected the allegations.


World Sikh Organization of Canada calls on Canadian government to protect activists facing threats

Here is what we know so far.

Who is Hardeep Singh Nijjar?

Nijjar, who moved to Canada in February 1997 to be a plumber, was a key figure in the movement for an independent Khalistan — a separate homeland for Sikhs in the Indian subcontinent.

But for the Indian government, he was wanted for allegedly being a “mastermind/active member” of the Khalistan Tiger Force (KTF), which the Indian government designates as a terrorist group.


5:12 Singh blasts Modi government over allegations India agents killed B.C. Sikh leader


Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, Nijjar’s friend and fellow Sikh nationalist, had told Global News in June that Nijjar said that gang members had warned him Indian intelligence agents had put a bounty on his head.

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service also told Nijjar they had information that he was “under threat from professional assassins,” Pannun had said.

The 1980s and early 1990s in India saw an armed conflict between the Indian government and Sikh separatists in the Sikh-majority northern state of Punjab. Amid a crackdown on the insurgency, Nijjar’s brother was arrested by police in India. In 1995, Nijjar himself was arrested.

He claimed in a sworn affidavit to immigration officials that he was beaten and tortured for information about his brother. He said he secured a bribe, cut his hair short and escaped.

In 1997, Nijjar came to Canada, claiming he had been beaten and tortured by Indian police. In 1998, his refugee claim was denied. According to his immigration records, he used a fraudulent passport that identified him as “Ravi Sharma.”

“I know that my life would be in grave danger if I had to go back to my country, India,” he wrote in his affidavit, dated June 9, 1998.

His application was rejected, and 11 days later Nijjar married a B.C. woman who sponsored him to immigrate as her spouse.

On his application form, he was asked whether he was associated with a group that used or advocated “armed struggle or violence to reach political, religious or social objectives.”

He said “no,” but immigration officials considered it a marriage of convenience and rejected Nijjar’s application. Nijjar appealed to the courts and lost in 2001, but he later identified himself as a Canadian citizen.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada declined to comment to Global News at the time of that report, citing privacy legislation.

On Tuesday, immigration minister Marc Miller confirmed that Nijjar became a Canadian citizen on March 3, 2015. “I hope this dispels the baseless rumours that he was not a Canadian,” Miller said.

Protesters chant outside of the Consulate General of India office during a protest for the recent shooting of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Vancouver on Saturday, June 24, 2023.
 THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ethan Cairns.
 

Nijjar ran a plumbing business in Surrey, B.C., and rose to become a prominent advocate for the creation of Khalistan — a separate Sikh nation.

He travelled around the world and called for a referendum on Khalistan and called for anti-Sikh violence in India to be recognized as “genocide.”

In 2014, a few months after India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a Hindu nationalist, took office, Indian authorities issued an arrest warrant for Nijjar. New Delhi described Nijjar as the “mastermind” of the militant group Khalistan Tiger Force.

He was accused of being involved in the 2007 bombing of a cinema in Punjab. A 2016 Interpol notice against him alleged he was a “key conspirator” in the attack. He was accused of recruiting and fundraising, a charge that Nijjar vehemently denied.

After Nijjar was shot dead, his supporters protested outside the Indian consulate in Vancouver.

“This act of violence was predictable and was foreseen. It is unacceptable for us,” Jatinder Singh Grewal, director of Sikhs for Justice, said.

Several people associated with Nijjar said he had expressed fears that he was being targeted and his life was under threat. Nijjar was said to be “very vocal” about threats that were being made to him “discreetly,” and other individuals associated with the gurudwara have also faced threats.

Last week, a referendum that Nijjar had been working on was held in Surrey’s Guru Nanak Sikh Gurudwara, where Nijjar served as president. The non-binding and unofficial vote was organized by Sikhs for Justice, a group that advocates for a Khalistani nation.

The group estimated more than 100,000 people attended the vote in Surrey.

What are Canadian leaders saying?

On Monday, leaders of all three major parties in Canada rose to address the matter in the House of Commons.

“Canada is a rule of law,” Trudeau told the House of Commons. “Our country, the protection of our citizens and defence of our sovereignty are fundamental.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre told the House that if the allegations are proven true, they represent an “outrageous affront” to Canadian sovereignty. He called on the Indian government to cooperate with “utmost transparency”.

But the most emotional appeal came from NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, who is the first Sikh-Canadian to lead a major Canadian political party.

Singh, who is banned from travelling to India, spoke in Punjabi in the House.

“All I want to say in Punjabi is everything we heard today, we all knew as children that the Indian government commits many atrocities. But we never thought we’d have to face this danger after coming here, to Canada. I want to say to everyone, that I am here,” he said.

“With whatever strength I have, I will not budge till justice is served in this case. I will not budge till every link is investigated and justice is served.”

With files from Global’s Stewart Bell, Elizabeth McSheffrey, Christa Dao, Darrian Matassa-Fung

AL JAZEERA 
EXPLAINER

Who was Hardeep Singh Nijjar whose killing triggered India-Canada tensions?

Ottawa and New Delhi expel diplomats as tensions escalate over the killing of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

In a tit-for-tat move, India has expelled a senior Canadian diplomat, hours after Ottawa expelled a top Indian official as tensions escalate between the two countries over the killing of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar earlier this year.

On Monday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described in parliament what he called credible allegations that India was connected to Nijjar’s assassination in British Columbia state in June.

KEEP READING

Sikh separatist Amritpal Singh arrested in India after manhunt

The Indian government dismissed the allegations as “absurd” and asked Canada instead to crack down on anti-India groups operating in its territory.

The row centres around the Sikh independence movement, commonly known as the Khalistan movement. India accuses Canada of sheltering Khalistani activists.

Here’s all you need to know:

What triggered the tensions?

Nijjar, 45, was shot dead outside a Sikh temple on June 18 in Surrey, a Vancouver suburb with a large Sikh population, three years after India had designated him as a “terrorist”.

Nijjar supported the demand for a Sikh homeland in India’s northern state of Punjab, the birthplace of the Sikh religion, which borders Pakistan. He was reportedly organising an unofficial referendum in India for an independent Sikh nation at the time of this death.

Trudeau on Monday said any involvement of a foreign government in the killing of a Canadian citizen was “an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty”.

On Tuesday, India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said allegations of India’s involvement in any act of violence in Canada are “absurd and motivated”.

It said the “unsubstantiated allegations” sought to shift focus away from “Khalistani terrorists and extremists who have been provided shelter in Canada”.

Indian authorities announced a cash reward last year for information leading to Nijjar’s arrest, accusing him of involvement in an alleged attack on a Hindu priest in India.

A sign outside a Sikh temple after Nijjar’s killing in Surrey, British Columbia 
[File: Chris Helgren/Reuters]

Trudeau said he brought up Nijjar’s killing with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Group of 20 (G20) Summit in New Delhi last week. He said he told Modi that any Indian government involvement would be unacceptable and that he asked for cooperation in the investigation.

“In the strongest possible terms, I continue to urge the government of India to cooperate with Canada to get to the bottom of this matter,” he said.
How did India respond?

The MEA dismissed the accusation that India was linked to Nijjar’s killing.

“Such unsubstantiated allegations seek to shift the focus from Khalistani terrorists and extremists, who have been provided shelter in Canada and continue to threaten India’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” a ministry statement said.
On Tuesday, the foreign ministry said it had given a senior Canadian diplomat five days to leave the country, without disclosing his name or rank.

“The decision reflects the government of India’s growing concern at the interference of Canadian diplomats in our internal matters and their involvement in anti-India activities,” it said.

The ministry had summoned Cameron MacKay, Canada’s high commissioner in New Delhi, to notify him of the move, it added.

Earlier, New Delhi urged Ottawa to take action against anti-Indian groups in Canada.

“Allegations of the government of India’s involvement in any act of violence in Canada are absurd and motivated,” it said, adding that similar accusations made by Trudeau to Modi had been “completely rejected”.

Who was Hardeep Singh Nijjar?

Here is what is known about Hardeep Singh Nijjar, the man at the centre of the India-Canada row.

Nijjar was born in 1977 in Jalandhar district in India’s northern state of Punjab and moved to Canada in 1997, where he worked as a plumber, according to the Khalistan Extremism Monitor of the New Delhi-based independent Institute for Conflict Management.

He was initially associated with the Babbar Khalsa International (BKI) Sikh separatist group, according to India’s counter-terrorist, National Investigation Agency. New Delhi has listed BKI as a “terrorist organisation” and says it is funded by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spy agency, a charge Islamabad denies.



Nijjar later became chief of the Khalistan Tiger Force (KTF) group and was “actively involved in operationalising, networking, training and financing” its members, according to a 2020 Indian government statement.

New Delhi officially categorised him as a “terrorist” in the same statement, saying he was involved in “exhorting seditionary and insurrectionary imputations” and “attempting to create disharmony among different communities” in the country.

For supporters demanding a so-called independent Sikh state of Khalistan, Nijjar was a prominent leader and a strong voice for the cause.

He was elected head of the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurudwara, a Sikh place of worship, in Surrey, the Vancouver suburb where he lived. He held that position at the time of his death.

Nijjar was shot dead outside the same gurudwara on the evening of June 18.

Hundreds of people protested outside the Indian consulate in Vancouver after his murder, alleging foreign hands were involved in his death, local media reported at the time.

What is the Sikh separatist movement?

Sikhism is a minority religion originating in northern India that traces its roots back to the 15th century and drew influences from both Hinduism and Islam.

Its adherents make up less than two percent of India’s 1.4 billion people but Sikhs are nearly 60 percent of the population in the northern state of Punjab, the faith’s heartland.

India won its independence in 1947 but immediately suffered through the blood-soaked Partition that divided the former British colony along religious lines.

Muslims fled to the newly formed nation of Pakistan while Hindus and Sikhs fled to India in the ensuing violence, which killed at least one million people.

The historical region of Punjab was split between the two countries and was wracked by some of the worst violence of Partition.

Since then, some Sikhs have called for the creation of “Khalistan”, a separate sovereign nation and “land of the pure” carved out of Punjab and governed by the faith’s precepts.

Those calls grew louder in subsequent decades as Punjab became one of the wealthiest states in India, owing to an agricultural revolution that dramatically lifted farm yields.

Who is Sikh separatist Amritpal Singh?

The separatist movement began as an armed rebellion in the late 1980s among Sikhs demanding a separate homeland. The violent movement lasted more than a decade and was suppressed by an Indian government crackdown in which thousands of people were killed, including prominent Sikh leaders.


Hundreds of Sikh youths were also killed in police operations, many of which were later proven in courts to have been staged, according to rights groups.

In 1984, Indian forces stormed the Golden Temple, Sikhism’s holiest shrine, in Amritsar to flush out separatists who had taken refuge there. The operation killed about 400 people, according to official figures, but Sikh groups say thousands were killed.

The dead included Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, whom the Indian government accused of leading the armed rebellion.

On October 31, 1984, then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who had ordered the raid on the temple, was assassinated by two of her Sikh bodyguards.

Her death triggered a series of anti-Sikh riots, in which Hindu mobs went from house to house across northern India, particularly New Delhi, pulling Sikhs from their homes, hacking many to death and burning others alive.
Canadian-based Sikh extremists were also accused of carrying out the 1985 bombing of an Air India flight, killing 329 people, for the Khalistan cause.

Is the movement still active?

There is no active rebellion in Punjab today, but the Khalistan movement still has some supporters in the state, as well as in the sizable Sikh diaspora overseas.

The Indian government has warned repeatedly over the years that Sikh separatists were trying to make a comeback. Modi’s government has also intensified the pursuit of Sikh separatists and arrested dozens of leaders from various outfits allegedly linked to the movement.

But Hartosh Bal, executive editor of The Caravan magazine in India, told Al Jazeera the Sikh separatist movement has been non-existent for decades.

“The Khalistan movement has a long history and during the 1980s, there was a violent military movement on Indian soil. But ever since – at least in India, in the state of Punjab, where the Sikhs are the majority – the Khalistan movement has been virtually non-existent, enjoys no political support and goes up and down depending on the attention the Indian government pays to it,” Bal said.

“This attention has gone up considerably since the Modi government came to power in 2014. It does have strong roots both in Canada and the UK, where things like referendums are held, but given that the vast majority of Sikhs are on Indian soil and are not participants in this referendum, these could have ideally been easily ignored.

“But the Modi government has consistently hyped up the Khalistani threat to India. I think, again, because it suits them domestically to talk about security threats to the Indian nation, rather than the actual measure of threat on the ground from the movement.”

How strong is the movement outside India?

India has been asking countries such as Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom to take legal action against Sikh activists. It has particularly raised these concerns with Canada, where Sikhs make up nearly 2 percent of the country’s population.

Earlier this year, Sikh protesters pulled down the Indian flag at the country’s high commission in London and smashed the building’s window in a show of anger against the move to arrest Amritpal Singh, a 30-year-old separatist leader who had revived calls for Khalistan and stirred fears of violence in Punjab.

Protesters also smashed windows at the Indian consulate in San Francisco and skirmished with embassy workers.

The MEA denounced the incidents and summoned the UK’s deputy high commissioner in New Delhi to lodge a protest against what it called the breach of security at the embassy in London.

The Indian government also accused Khalistan supporters in Canada of vandalising Hindu temples with “anti-India” graffiti and of attacking the offices of the Indian High Commission in Ottawa during a protest in March.

Last year, Paramjit Singh Panjwar, a Sikh separatist leader and head of the Khalistan Commando Force, was shot dead in Pakistan.

AL JAZEERA

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