Canada alleges much wider campaign by Modi government against Sikhs

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Photo / AFP

The killing of a Sikh separatist in Canada last year was part of a broader campaign of violence against Indian dissidents directed by a senior official in the Indian government and an operative in the country’s spy agency, according to Canadian officials who cited intercepted Indian communications and other newly acquired information.

Canadian authorities have also identified at least six Indian diplomats serving in Canada who were directly involved in gathering detailed intelligence on Sikh separatists who were then killed, attacked or threatened by India’s criminal proxies, Canadian officials said.

Canada ordered all six of those diplomats to leave the country, the officials said. Among them were India’s top diplomat in the country, Sanjay Kumar Verma, and its top consular official in Toronto, the officials said.

India issued a conflicting statement saying it had withdrawn the diplomats over concerns for their safety. India later announced that it had expelled six Canadian diplomats, including Canada’s top diplomat in New Delhi.

The previously undisclosed details about India’s alleged involvement in the 2023 death of Hardeep Singh Nijjar and other attacks stem from an ongoing investigation that Canadian authorities said has uncovered extensive evidence linking a larger outbreak of violence in Canada to the administration of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“We know they are involved in the Nijjar killing, in other murders and in ongoing violence – actual violence – in Canada,” said a senior Canadian official. The official said that since Nijjar’s death, the pace of threats has escalated to such an extent that authorities have warned a dozen individuals of Indian descent that there was credible information they could be targeted. The official and others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the investigation, citing the sensitivity of allegations that have caused a rupture in relations between Delhi and Ottawa.

India has vehemently denied the accusations. A statement issued by the country’s Ministry of External Affairs said that Modi’s Government “strongly rejects these preposterous imputations and ascribes them to the political agenda” of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Even so, the new allegations add to mounting concerns among Western security officials and human rights organisations that Modi’s Government has become one of the world’s most aggressive practitioners of “transnational repression,” or the use of violence and other means to neutralise perceived homegrown adversaries who have sought refuge in other countries.

The Biden administration, which has cultivated closer ties with India, last year confronted Modi administration officials with intelligence that an officer in India’s Research and Analysis Wing, a spy service known as RAW, was behind an attempt to assassinate a Sikh separatist in New York – a failed plot with parallels to the Nijjar case in Canada. The Washington Post identified the RAW officer as Vikram Yadav, though he was not named in a US indictment accusing an alleged Indian drug trafficker of seeking to hire a hitman to carry out the killing.

A Sikh rally outside the Indian consulate in Toronto to raise awareness for the Indian government's alleged involvement in the killing of Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in British Columbia. Photo / AFP

Nijjar and Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, the target of the New York plot, were leaders of a movement that for decades has campaigned to carve out an independent Sikh state in northern India. The movement was marked by violent clashes in the 1980s, but has been relatively dormant since a crackdown led to a mass exodus of Sikhs to other countries.

Modi, who came to power as a champion of Hindu nationalism, has revived concerns about the supposed threat posed by Sikhs living abroad. Modi and other officials have frequently accused Canada, which has the world’s largest population of Sikhs outside India, of harbouring terrorists.

Canadian officials said they only recently began to grasp the magnitude of the covert campaign of violence India has waged against Sikhs as new evidence emerged from an ongoing investigation of Nijjar’s killing that is led by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police but has involved other agencies, as well as intelligence provided by the United States and other allies.

Officials said the investigation has uncovered evidence of Indian government involvement in home invasions, drive-by shootings, arson and at least one additional killing.

Officials cited the death of Sukhdool Singh, who was shot in Winnipeg on September 20, 2023, less than a day after he was featured in a wanted list of gangsters posted on X by India’s National Investigation Agency. The killing came two days after Trudeau publicly accused India of killing Nijjar.

Officials described an operational “chain” in which Indian diplomats in Canada collect intelligence on alleged Sikh separatists that is then used by RAW to identify targets for attacks carried out by a criminal syndicate led by Lawrence Bishnoi, whose organisation, the officials said, has an extensive presence in Canada. Bishnoi is imprisoned in India and could not be reached for comment. His organisation has previously asserted responsibility for violent attacks in Canada, officials said.

Officials said Indian diplomats have used violence as well as threats to deny people needed immigration documents to coerce Indians living in Canada to serve as informants against Sikh activists. Canadian officials said this scheme involves Indian officials at the country’s consulates in Vancouver and Toronto as well as its High Commission – the embassy equivalent – in Ottawa. Canadian officials said the collection operation was overseen by Verma, India’s high commissioner in Ottawa.

“The coercion goes far beyond threatening to deny visas, to include physical threats to them and their families in India,” said a senior Canadian official, who added that “the information is being sent to India at almost the highest level”.

Conversations and texts among Indian diplomats include references to “a senior official in India and a senior official in RAW” who have authorised the intelligence-gathering missions and attacks on Sikh separatists, the Canadian official said.

Canadian officials identified the senior official in India as Amit Shah, a member of Modi’s inner circle who serves as Home Affairs Minister. Spokespeople in India’s Ministry for External Affairs and its Home Ministry, which oversees national security matters, did not respond to requests for comment about Shah’s alleged role.

Canadian officials shared details about the references to Shah and other evidence with India’s national security adviser, Ajit Doval, at a secret meeting in Singapore at the weekend. Canadians who took part in the meeting included Trudeau’s national security adviser, Nathalie Drouin, and Deputy Foreign Minister David Morrison, as well as a top RCMP official.

Canada had sought the meeting in an attempt to persuade Modi’s Government to end an escalating campaign of violence in Canada, but also to warn that details exposing Indian involvement in attacks were likely to become public as prosecutors move forward next month with a planned trial of four suspects in Nijjar’s killing.

Instead, officials said Doval made clear that India “would deny any link to the Nijjar murder and any link to any other violence in Canada no matter what the evidence was”, a senior Canadian official said.

Officials provided other details about the five-hour encounter with Doval, 79, a former spymaster who is seen as one of Modi’s closest confidants and has served as national security adviser for a decade.

Doval “did admit that India did use its diplomats to follow people, take pictures, et cetera, but denied any links to threats or violence”, an official said.

When Canadian officials outlined evidence that India had enlisted Bishnoi’s gang networks in Canada to carry out the Nijjar killing and other attacks, Doval initially “pretended not to have any idea who the guy was”, a Canadian official said. Later, however, Doval began rattling off “facts, figures and anecdotes” about Bishnoi, acknowledging that he “was capable of orchestrating violence from wherever he is incarcerated” and “was known to be up to no good from his jail cell”.

Bishnoi, 31, is one of India’s most notorious mob bosses, officials said, but has also been accused on social media of collaborating with the Government while in prison. Bishnoi’s gang asserted responsibility for Singh’s killing in September last year after Trudeau’s public statement linking India to Nijjar’s death.

In a news conference, RCMP officials said that violence orchestrated by India had become a “significant threat to public safety,” and that at least eight people have been arrested and charged in connection with homicide cases and nearly two dozen in connection with extortion investigations.

Canadian requests to interview Indian diplomats implicated in attacks were rebuffed by Modi’s Government, officials said.

Doval ended the Singapore meeting by asking his counterparts to treat the discussion as if it “never took place” – meaning they should refrain from issuing any public statement or acknowledgment of the gathering.

By the time Drouin and Morrison had made it back to Ottawa, however, pro-Modi media reports had surfaced in India describing how Indian officials had taken a “strong stance” and lectured Canada that “it cannot make unsubstantiated charges”.