Trudeau Links India To Slaying Of Sikh Separatist Leader In Canada
(EXPLAINER) Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused “agents of the government of India” of carrying out the assassination of a Sikh leader in British Columbia this past June.
Trudeau’s explosive comments, which took place before the House of Commons on Monday, pointed the finger for the shooting of Hardeep Singh Nijjar at India, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, “in no uncertain terms” based on Canadian intelligence.
Nijjar, 45, a strong supporter of an independent Sikh homeland known as Khalistan, was killed on June 18 outside a Sikh cultural center in Surrey, a suburb of Vancouver located south of the Fraser River on the U.S.-Canada border.
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“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.
Here’s everything you need to know about the case:
Canadian Sikhs and the Khalistan movement
Sikhs are a small religious group with about 25 million around the world, most of them in India. Canada has a Sikh population of more than 770,000 people, equal to about 2% of the country’s total population. In fact, Canadian Sikhs constitute one of the country’s largest non-Christian religious groups and form the country’s largest South Asian ethnic group.
The vast majority of Sikhs live in Asia, but government figures show that there were 455,000 Sikhs in Canada in 2011 — more than double the 1991 population estimate of 145,000. Almost half of the country’s Sikh’s make British Columbia their home.
The call for a separate Sikh state began in the wake of the fall of the British Empire. In 1940, the first explicit calls for the creation of Khalistan was made in a pamphlet titled “Khalistan.”
Sikhs living in Canada are affected by events regarding Sikhism in India, including the rise of a nationalist movement for an independent state known as Khalistan. Many Canadian Sikhs have supported the independence movement financially, especially after the Indian army’s 1984 storming on the Golden Temple in in Amritsar — the holiest site in Sikhism — to attack a group led by separatist leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale.
The Indian government said hundreds of people were killed as a result of Operation Blue Star, the name given to the military action. In retaliation, two of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s Sikh bodyguards assassinated her that same year — 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. Following a years-long probe and trial, two Sikh separatists from British Columbia were acquitted in 2005 of murder and conspiracy in that bombing, which remains the deadliest in Canadian history.
The Khalistan movement is banned in India, where officials see it and affiliated groups as a national security threat. But the separatist movement still has some support in northern India and in countries like Canada and the United Kingdom, which are home to members of the sizable Sikh diaspora.
The World Sikh Organization of Canada called Nijjar an outspoken supporter of Khalistan who “often led peaceful protests against the violation of human rights actively taking place in India and in support of Khalistan.”
Details of Nijjar’s murder
Nijjar’s death sent shockwaves across Canada’s Sikh community. At a news conference in June, investigators from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said he had been ambushed while in his car by two masked men at 8:30 p.m. outside the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara — but would not say at the time whether the attack had been politically motivated.
The New York Times reported that 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 a police investigation, Canadian officials did not offer any details about India’s involvement in the assassination.
But the World Sikh Organization of Canada said Nijjar, who had been living in Canada since 1997, “had publicly spoken of the threat to his life for months and said that he was targeted by Indian intelligence agencies.”
Multiple sources told Canada’s Global News that Nijjar was repeatedly threatened before he was killed in relation to his political activism. In a May 18 interview with Spice Radio 1200 AM, Nijjar had even voiced concerns about being on a hit list.
Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a lawyer representing Nijjar’s family, told Postmedia that Nijjar had been warned by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service of threats against him because of his activism. Nijjar, Pannum said, had been working to for the creation of Khalistan by the U.S-based group Sikhs for Justice.
India, meanwhile, had accused Nijjar of “terrorism-related activities.” In 2016, it accused Nijjar of conspiring to murder a Hindu priest in India. India’s counterterrorism National Investigation Agency announced a $16,000 reward for information leading to his arrest.
Nijjar had even reached out to Trudeau, asking him to “dispel the Indian government’s fabricated, baseless, fictitious and politically motivated allegations against me.”
Political fallout
Trudeau’s comments are likely to further strain relations between India and Canada. In fact, Trudeau said he had declared his deep concerns about this case to Modi and other Indian government officials at the recent G-20 summit held in New Delhi.
“Any involvement of a foreign government in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil is an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty,” said Trudeau, noting that Canada’s government has been working closely with its allies on the case.
As a result, Melanie Joly, Canada’s foreign minister, announced they had expelled a diplomat whom she described as the head of India’s intelligence agency in Canada. In response, India expelled a senior Canadian diplomat and accused Canada of interfering in its internal affairs.
Trudeau’s announcement comes after a Canadian judge opened a public inquiry earlier this month into interference by foreign governments, prompted by allegations that China and Russia had been interfering in Canadian politics.
Trudeau, who plans to attend the U.N. General Assembly this week in New York, said he knows there are people in the Indo-Canadian community who feel frightened by the murder.
“In the strongest possible terms,” he added, “I continue to urge the government of India to cooperate with Canada to get to the bottom of this matter.”
Clemente Lisi is the executive editor at Religion Unplugged. He is the author of “The FIFA World Cup: A History of the Planet’s Biggest Sporting Event” and previously served as deputy head of news at the New York Daily News and a longtime reporter at The New York Post. Follow him on Twitter @ClementeLisi.