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.”

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.

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.

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Canada’s Assassination Claim Against India

• A Stunning Accusation: Canada accused India of assassinating a Sikh leader in British Columbia in June, further souring relations between the two nations. “The Daily” explains the situation.
• U.S. Intelligence: American spy agencies provided information to their Canadian counterparts after the killing, but communications intercepted by Canada were more definitive in linking India to the plot.
• Biden in a Bind: The alleged assassination has left President Biden caught between U.S. allies — one of America’s oldest friends and the newer friend he has been cultivating.
• A Divided Diaspora: The allegation has revived long-simmering tensions within Canada’s Indian diaspora, pitting Hindu nationalists against supporters of the creation of an independent Sikh state.

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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.

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

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.

One day after explosive allegation, Trudeau says he's not trying to 'provoke' India

Questions mount about security precautions for Nijjar after India's government linked to killing

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.

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.

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.

Canada's allies aren't keen to take sides in confrontation with India over Sikh activist's death

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