By Krutika Pathi and David Cohen, The Related Press
NEW DELHI — Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh independence advocate whose killing two months in the past is on the heart of a widening breach between India and Canada, was known as a human rights activist by Sikh organizations and a terrorist by India’s authorities.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated Monday that his authorities was investigating “credible allegations that brokers of the Indian state had been linked to the killing of a Canadian citizen” after Nijjar was gunned down on June 18 outdoors a Sikh cultural heart in Surrey, British Columbia.
India denied any position within the killing, calling the allegations absurd.
Nijjar was a outstanding member of a motion to create an impartial Sikh homeland often called Khalistan, and on the time of his loss of life was organizing an unofficial referendum among the many Sikh diaspora with the group Sikhs For Justice.
He additionally owned a plumbing enterprise and served as president of an area Sikh temple or gurdwara.
Nijjar was a needed man in India, the place authorities labeled him a terrorist in 2020.
In 2016, Indian media reported that he was suspected of masterminding a bombing within the Sikh-majority state of Punjab and coaching terrorists in a small metropolis southeast of Vancouver.
He denied the allegations and advised the Vancouver Solar that he was too busy to take part in Sikh diaspora politics.
“That is rubbish — all of the allegations. I’m dwelling right here 20 years, proper? Have a look at my file. There’s nothing. I’m a tough employee. I personal my very own enterprise within the plumbing,” Nijjar advised the newspaper.
Following his loss of life, the World Sikh Group of Canada known as Nijjar an outspoken supporter of Khalistan who “typically led peaceable protests towards the violation of human rights actively going down in India and in help of Khalistan.”
India has waged an at occasions bloody wrestle towards the Sikh independence motion because the Eighties, when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ordered a raid to seize armed separatists taking refuge in a serious Sikh temple.
The raid killed a whole bunch of individuals, and two of Gandhi’s Sikh bodyguards assassinated her shortly after. In response, anti-Sikh riots occurred throughout India during which members of the minority had been dragged out of their properties and killed.
Extra lately, the Hindu nationalist-led authorities of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has cracked down on each non-Hindu rights actions and dissidents.
India additionally filed a felony case towards Nijjar in 2020 for “conspiring to create an environment of worry and lawlessness, and inciting individuals to rise in riot towards the Authorities of India” when farmers, many from Punjab, camped out on the sides of New Delhi to protest controversial agriculture legal guidelines.
Final yr, Indian authorities accused Nijjar of involvement in an alleged assault on a Hindu priest in India and introduced a reward of about $16,000 for data resulting in his arrest.
Canadian police stated Nijjar was shot as he was leaving the automotive park of the Sikh temple the place he served as president. He suffered a number of gunshot wounds and died on the scene.
After the killing, a lawyer and spokesperson for Sikhs For Justice, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, stated Nijjar had been a goal of threats due to his activism. His killing was the second in two years of a outstanding member of the Sikh group in Canada.
Pannun stated he had spoken to Nijjar by telephone the day earlier than he was killed and that Nijjar had advised him that Canadian intelligence had warned him that his life was in danger.
On June 24, about 200 protesters from Canada’s Sikh group gathered in entrance of the Indian Consulate in Vancouver to display towards Niijar’s killing. They described him as “peaceable” and “humble” and dismissed allegations that he was linked to violence.
Most of the protesters had been satisfied that Nijjar’s killing was linked to his requires an impartial Sikh state.
“He was a loving man, a hard-working man, a household man,” stated Gurkeerat Singh, one of many protesters.
On Monday, Moninder Singh, a spokesperson for the British Columbia Sikh Gurdwara Council, advised Canada’s CTV that the wave of help for Nijjar seen after his loss of life was a sign of how he was seen locally.
“It shook the group throughout your entire world, together with in Punjab,” Singh stated.
“The group is shattered. There are very, very excessive feelings,” Sukh Dhaliwal, a member of Parliament who represents Surrey, stated days after the killing in June.
Cohen reported from Bangkok.
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