For greater than three years, Moninder Singh has been residing every day understanding he might be assassinated. Police have suggested the Canadian-born activist at least 3 times they believed he was about to be killed.
As not too long ago as March, police notified him of an imminent menace to his life and, in April, steered he keep away from public occasions. The warnings all got here from the RCMP nationwide safety unit.
As a longtime B.C.-based campaigner for independence for India’s Sikh-majority Punjab state, Singh is assured he is aware of who desires him useless: the federal government of India.
The threats have pressured him to vacate his house for months at a time, so his youngsters wouldn’t get caught within the crossfire, and transfer into accommodations and Airbnbs, reserving rooms below false names and utilizing borrowed bank cards, attempting to cowl his tracks.
“No person ought to need to reside like this,” he advised World Information in an interview final week at his Surrey, B.C., residence.
Singh isn’t complaining, or hiding, and he has solely ramped up the activism that upsets India. However with Prime Minister Mark Carney now mending ties with New Delhi within the title of commerce, he feels let down.
Canadian Sikhs, significantly these like Singh who maintain management positions, are the first targets of Indian transnational repression and disinformation.
The RCMP has linked Indian brokers to the 2023 homicide of a B.C. Sikh temple chief, in addition to shootings, extortions, arsons and assassination plots.
The international interference inquiry discovered that India’s meddling in Canadian elections, which allegedly included secretly financing candidates, was outpaced solely by that of China.
India has nonetheless not publicly acknowledged its actions or promised to cease them, however the Carney authorities is nonetheless pushing to not solely renew ties with New Delhi, however to deepen them.
“I feel all the Sikh group, together with myself, really feel a way of betrayal on this,” Singh mentioned. “However I additionally really feel that it’s a betrayal of all Canadians and what Canada stands for.”
The prime minister’s workplace didn’t reply to a request for remark. Nor did India’s excessive commissioner in Ottawa, who not too long ago denied any misdeeds by his authorities.
International Affairs Minister Anita Anand mentioned in a press release to World Information that it was “unequivocally false to say that Canada’s international coverage ignores these considerations.”
Canada continues to “elevate these severe considerations with India. I raised safety considerations straight in my conferences and there may be additionally an everyday regulation enforcement dialogue between senior officers in each international locations,” she mentioned.
She pointed to an ongoing RCMP investigation and the addition of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang, which India allegedly makes use of to commit violence in Canada, to the federal government’s listing of terrorist organizations.
“We’re thus taking quite a few steps and we are going to proceed to uphold the rule of regulation with a purpose to make sure that all Canadians are protected,” Anand mentioned.
A Sikh volunteer stands guard close to the sacred pond of the Golden Temple, Amritsar, India, Nov. 21, 2010. (AP Picture/Sanjeev Syal).
That doesn’t consolation Singh, who remains to be ready for India to be held to account for what it has allegedly finished in Canada.
Singh grew up in Clearwater, then a logging mill city within the B.C. Inside, listening to in regards to the Punjab from his father, a forest trade employee initially from India.
When Singh was nonetheless a younger boy, the Indian military stormed the Golden Temple, one among Sikhism’s holiest websites, the place separatist militants have been holed up.
The army operation was meant to crush the Khalistan motion that was looking for independence for the Punjab, however solely infected it.
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards 5 months later, and in 1985, pro-Khalistan terrorists planted bombs on two Air India flights departing Canada, killing 331 individuals.
Singh mentioned his father was “distraught” by the occasions in his homeland and started campaigning for Punjab’s separation.
“I used to be very younger on the time, however I watched and I used to be concerned and I used to be part of protests,” Singh mentioned.
“And as I received into my teenage years, I used to be already sort of well-versed in what our individuals have been going by within the state of Punjab.”
As a Sikh youth chief in B.C.’s Decrease Mainland, Singh grew to become a number one voice for independence, which he sees as “reclaiming of the sovereignty we had earlier than British colonization.”
He has by no means been concerned in organizations selling violence, nor has he advocated for it, he mentioned, though he does consider in the correct to “self-defence.”
He now heads the Sikh Federation, which shaped final yr to push again in opposition to “transnational repression and international interference focusing on our group.”
Murder investigators have launched a map of the suspected route taken by gunmen who shot Hardeep Singh Nijjar on June 18, 2023.
Handout/Built-in Murder Investigation Crew
Police first warned Singh his life was in danger in July 2022, the identical day fellow activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar obtained the same “responsibility to warn” discover.
RCMP Built-in Nationwide Safety Enforcement Crew officers arrived at Singh’s home accompanied by baby and household companies employees, who successfully advised him he needed to transfer out for the sake of his youngsters.
“It was very complicated as to what this responsibility to warn was, as a result of we had by no means heard of them earlier than,” he mentioned.
Though he went together with it, he didn’t take the menace that severely — till eleven months later, when Nijjar was gunned down within the car parking zone of Surrey’s Guru Nanak Sikh Temple, the place he was president.
“If we weren’t taking it severely sufficient the yr earlier than that, we positively have been after the assassination,” Singh mentioned.
Days later, the FBI introduced it had disrupted a second plot, this one in opposition to Sikh activist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a New York-based affiliate of Nijjar’s who was additionally a pro-Khalistan campaigner.
The U.S. investigation traced the plot to the Analysis and Evaluation Wing, or RAW, the intelligence arm that stories to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s workplace in New Delhi.
A RAW officer named Vikash Yadav had allegedly contracted the killing to an Indian organized crime determine, inducing him with cash and a promise to have excellent costs in opposition to him dropped, however he had additionally talked about three targets in Canada.
The plots have been apparently pushed by a call to deal with the Khalistan motion outdoors India as a serious safety drawback, one which Ottawa was ignoring.
There was little proof to justify these considerations. In response to the Canadian Safety Intelligence Service, pro-Khalistan extremists are solely a “small group.”
India’s hyperlinks to the Nijjar homicide marked “a big escalation in India’s repression efforts in opposition to the Khalistan motion and a transparent intent to focus on people in North America,” CSIS wrote in its 2024 annual report.
Unacceptable sovereignty violation
RAW officer Vikash Yadav allegedly recruited an Indian organized crime determine to kill a U.S.-based Sikh activist, and spoke of three targets in Canada.
U.S. District Courtroom
Canada did the correct issues at first, in line with Singh.
Then-prime minister Justin Trudeau went public with India’s suspected position in Nijjar’s homicide in September 2023, calling the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil an “unacceptable violation of our sovereignty.”
Final October, citing a “important menace to public security in our nation,” the RCMP introduced a broader sequence of crimes had been “orchestrated by brokers of the federal government of India.”
“Properly over a dozen credible and imminent threats to life” had been uncovered, prompting police to warn members of the South Asian group, RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme mentioned.
He didn’t title these on the hit listing however they included Jagmeet Singh, who needed to lead the New Democratic Occasion whereas below police safety.
Ottawa responded by expelling India’s excessive commissioner and 5 different Indian officers who have been deemed individuals of curiosity within the RCMP investigations.
However then the federal election introduced a brand new prime minister to energy, and every thing appeared to vary, Singh mentioned.
‘India grew to become viable once more’
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney welcomes Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the G7 Summit in Kananaskis, Alta., on June 17, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld.
Elected to adapt Canada’s economic system to the problem of an erratic, pro-tariff White Home, Carney got here to workplace looking for out commerce companions in Europe and Asia.
“Someplace in all of that, India grew to become viable once more,” Singh mentioned. “And we mainly washed the slate clear and allowed them again.”
“That, to us as a Sikh group, creates simply as large, if not an even bigger threat now, as a result of now Canada is aware of every thing that India has finished.”
Carney started by inviting Modi, whose right-hand man Amit Shah was allegedly behind Nijjar’s killing, to the G7 summit in Alberta in June.
His international minister adopted up in August by saying Canada and India have been restoring ties and appointing new excessive commissioners.
Nationwide Safety Advisor Nathalie Drouin visited New Delhi in September and mentioned India and Canada had “dedicated to non-interference together with refraining from transnational repression.”
“So I feel that we have now discovered a manner, as I mentioned, to handle mutual considerations and for leaders to have the ability to speak about [a] commerce relationship,” she advised reporters.
The RCMP has accused India of utilizing the Bishnoi gang, seen right here taking pictures at a home in Colwood, B.C., to assault targets in Canada.
B.C. court docket
Public Security Minister Gary Anandasangaree put the Bishnoi gang on Canada’s listing of terror teams, however with out mentioning that the crime group works with the Indian state.
Anand met her Indian counterpart in New Delhi in October and mentioned they’d “reached consensus on a brand new highway map for Canada-India relations.”
India has now invited Carney to India to forge a free commerce pact that was shelved when the RCMP uncovered proof Modi’s authorities was behind the Nijjar homicide.
Ottawa and New Delhi are engaged in a “law-enforcement dialogue,” World Affairs Canada mentioned, including Canada was “reassured by the extent of engagement and cooperation by India in latest months.”
“On the similar time, the worldwide context is shifting and Canada is dealing with new, main challenges. India is the world’s fourth largest economic system and a rustic of nice international consequence,” the division mentioned in a press release to World Information.
“It’s in Canada’s curiosity to strengthen these ties as a part of a broader effort to diversify commerce and higher handle the dangers that Canada is dealing with right this moment.”
NDP public security critic Jenny Kwan, a goal of China’s international interference, mentioned it was “deeply troubling” that Carney was renewing ties with India.
“At a time when Canadians proceed to obtain responsibility to warn notices from the RCMP that their lives could also be in jeopardy, it’s unconscionable that the Carney authorities is re-engaging with India with out demanding accountability,” the MP advised World Information.
“It sends a harmful message — that the Liberals are prepared to look the opposite manner when Canadians are focused on our personal soil,” she mentioned, including the federal government had nonetheless not launched a promised international agent registry.
The flip of occasions has left Singh feeling as if he and Canada’s massive Sikh group are sacrifices to financial technique.
Indian Excessive Commissioner Dinesh Patnaik’s latest denials and makes an attempt guilty Canada for the rift in relations have added to the considerations.
“That, to me, reveals India’s angle,” Singh mentioned.
Canada is restarting a relationship with “folks that don’t have any regret. They don’t have any recognition of what they’ve finished, and primarily based on the excessive commissioner’s feedback this week, they don’t have any intention of correcting something.”
Whereas police have been arresting avenue stage Bishnoi gang members, Sikh organizations need the federal government to publicly disclose the main points of India’s actions.
“Vital and substantive steps are required to regain the Sikh group’s belief,” Singh mentioned.
Moninder Singh outdoors the Guru Nanak Sikh Temple, Surrey, B.C., Sept. 18, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck.
Since Nijjar’s homicide, Singh has once more been pressured to reside aside from his household for lengthy stretches. Buddies generally tail him with their vehicles, hoping they could be capable of intervene if assassins make their transfer, he mentioned.
He believes India’s goal is to silence its most outspoken critics, and he isn’t ready to allow them to get away with it.
“We’re not gonna cease doing what we’re doing. That’s what India desires,” he mentioned. “I’m not holed up in some bunker or something like that. I’m very public.”
“I feel I’m extra public now than I’ve been ever. And I feel there’s one thing drawing that out of me, and loads of it has to do with my buddy’s assassination.”
Whereas he mentioned he understands that not everybody agrees with what he has to say, as a Canadian he feels he has the correct to precise himself.
“But when India goes to return right here and begin shutting down one dialog with one group of individuals, it opens the door for a lot of different international locations to try to do the identical.”
Stewart.Bell@globalnews.ca
