A Canadian border officer was the sufferer of India’s ‘propaganda machine.’ Now he’s suing.

Final October, Indian information shops ran with what they promoted as a “landmine” story: a fugitive needed for terrorism was on the payroll of the Canadian authorities.

Sandeep Singh Sidhu was not solely a “dreaded terrorist,” an Indian tv anchor informed her hundreds of thousands of viewers, he was additionally a Canada Border Providers Company superintendent.

Beneath banners that learn “Trudeau’s tax-funded terrorist” and “Kanada rewards murderer,” Indian information hosts known as it a surprising revelation about “soiled Canadian secrets and techniques.”

Nevertheless it wasn’t true, based on the Canadian authorities and Sidhu’s legal professionals, who allege the veteran regulation enforcement officer was the sufferer of an Indian authorities disinformation marketing campaign.

And now Sidhu, a lifelong British Columbia resident who has spent the previous twenty years safeguarding Canada’s frontiers, is pushing again towards these he says threw his life into turmoil.

In a lawsuit towards India’s authorities to be filed within the Ontario court docket, Sidhu accused the South Asian nation of recklessly making him the face of a ploy geared toward embarrassing Canada.

He’s additionally suing the Canadian authorities, which he says did not defend him from the state-sponsored scheme that pressured him into hiding amid requires his arrest and killing.

The case is a uncommon try to hunt accountability for the falsehoods that India’s authorities and its loyal information shops and social media customers have been broadly accused of peddling.

And it comes as Prime Minister Mark Carney is deepening ties with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s authorities regardless of mounting proof of its assaults on Canadians.

The lawsuit, which seeks $9 million in private harm damages, alleges that New Delhi unfold fabrications about Sidhu to hit again at Ottawa for accusing India of committing violence in Canada.

Sidhu, who goes by “Sunny,” was singled out by India as a result of he had a typical Sikh title and a visual, uniformed place inside the Canadian nationwide safety equipment, they mentioned in an announcement of declare.

For these causes, India made him the “patsy” of an effort to punish Canada for blaming it for an assassination in Surrey, B.C., and a listing of different crimes, the lawsuit alleges.

“Sunny grew to become merely an instrument of India’s propaganda machine to falsely accuse Canada of using and supporting a Khalistani extremist,” the assertion of declare reads.

On account of the “coordinated overseas interference” offensive, Sidhu was subjected to a “tidal wave of aggressive misinformation” and requires his extradition and homicide, the swimsuit alleges.

However the CBSA wouldn’t present him with any safety and threatened him with suspension or termination until he cooperated with intrusive background checks that in the end cleared him, it mentioned.

“The CBSA did nothing to assist him and as an alternative mocked the dying threats towards him and suggested him that this was not a work-related matter,” based on the declare filed by Sidhu’s Toronto lawyer, Jeffrey Kroeker.

Sidhu was born in B.C. and isn’t concerned in Indian politics, neither is he a practising Sikh. Till just lately, his public publicity was restricted to cameos within the actuality tv sequence Border Safety.

Being the goal of a overseas state, one which federal authorities have accused of assassinating one other Canadian India had labelled a terrorist, was life-altering, the swimsuit claims.

Amid the relentless threats and harassment, he turned to alcohol and admitted himself to a rehab program at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver.

Smeared by India, he was then deserted by Canada, based on the swimsuit, as officers who had an obligation to assist him “as an alternative took each alternative to show their again on him and wash their palms of duty.”

The Excessive Fee of India in Ottawa didn’t reply to requests for remark. India has denied fees that it’s behind disinformation, transnational repression, assassination plots and election meddling in Canada.

Though the RCMP has mentioned its investigations assist the allegations, Carney has restored diplomatic ties with India and is pursuing a commerce take care of Modi as he tries to minimize Canada’s dependence on the U.S. market.

The 2 leaders met on the G20 summit in South Africa final month and “launched negotiations for a commerce deal that would greater than double our commerce to $70 billion,” Carney wrote on X.

“India is the world’s fifth largest economic system, and which means large new alternatives for Canadian staff and companies,” he wrote.

However what it means for Canada’s South Asian group, which the RCMP says is the principle goal of the Modi authorities’s actions in Canada, is one other matter.

Since Modi grew to become India’s prime minister in 2015, his authorities and supporters have characterised Canada as awash with anti-India “terrorists.”

Whereas Canada does have an energetic Khalistan motion that advocates for independence for India’s Sikh-majority Punjab state, CSIS reviews that solely a “small group” are extremists.

However as India has tried to rebrand itself as a worldwide energy, it has escalated its efforts towards what it deems anti-India affect, and pro-Khalistan activists have develop into major targets.

The scenario escalated considerably in 2022, when Indian intelligence brokers allegedly started plotting to assassinate Sikhs in Canada, the U.S. and elsewhere.

On June 18, 2023, gunmen shot Hardeep Singh Nijjar exterior a Sikh temple in Surrey, B.C. Like Sidhu, Nijjar had been labelled a terrorist by India primarily based on what the RCMP deemed flimsy proof.

When the RCMP investigation linked Indian brokers to the killing, then-prime minister Justin Trudeau notified Parliament, setting off a flood of disinformation.

Modi-aligned media shops unfold memes portraying Trudeau, Canadian safety companies and Sikhs as ‘enablers of terrorism’ and threats to India, based on a authorities report.

A month later, a pro-Modi on-line influencer and former military officer with 750,000 followers posted a video on YouTube accusing Sidhu of being a terrorist referred to as “Toronto Sunny,” based on the lawsuit.

“This false allegation was circulated inside Indian social media channels by different outstanding pro-Modi influencers, together with requires the Canadian authorities to arrest Sunny and extradite him,” the lawsuit alleges.

“The instruction to make this allegation got here from the Indian authorities.”

Shocked, Sidhu reported the matter to his superiors. He anticipated assist, however as an alternative the CBSA responded that it had no duty to guard him, the assertion of declare alleges.

To place the matter to relaxation, Sidhu cooperated with the Canadian Safety Intelligence Service, which regarded into his previous, canvassed family and friends, and carried out polygraph checks, he mentioned.

“CSIS discovered nothing,” mentioned the swimsuit.

Happy the Indian media reviews had been pretend, the CBSA cleared him. However the story returned with a vengeance final 12 months, as tensions between Canada and India reached new heights.

On Oct. 14, 2024, the commissioner of the RCMP introduced that Indian brokers had been implicated not solely in Nijjar’s killing but in addition in different shootings, arsons and extortions throughout Canada.

In response, Canada expelled six Indian diplomats the RCMP had recognized as individuals of curiosity in its investigations into the assaults.

Lower than every week later, Sidhu discovered himself on Indian information shops depicted as a needed terrorist within the make use of of a hypocritical Canadian authorities.

Indian commentators known as “terrorist Sidhu” proof of Ottawa’s nerve for pointing the finger at New Delhi for killing Nijjar, when its personal authorities had terrorists on its payroll.

“Trudeau has egg on his face,” the Occasions Now headline learn. “Hypocrisy uncovered,” mentioned the banner on the India At present broadcast.

The India At present host mentioned the story “fully undermines, if not exposes, Canada’s criticism of India for allegedly focusing on people on overseas soil.”

Calling Canada “a risk to India’s nationwide safety,” he mentioned the nation was not solely a “secure haven” for anti-India terrorists, however put them into key authorities positions.

“The one doable rationalization is that Sandeep Singh Sidhu has been intentionally hand-picked, intentionally chosen by the Canadian authorities to fill a delicate put up particularly in order that his legal abilities will be harnessed and deployed for different causes, maybe to facilitate the passage of criminals and separatists from Punjab to Canada,” the host claimed.

The video was posted on India At present’s YouTube channel, which has 10.9 million subscribers. The identical host was cited in a 2024 Canadian authorities report on Indian disinformation.

Neither India At present nor Occasions Now responded to requests for remark.

Sidhu’s title, picture and residential tackle had been quickly splashed throughout Indian information channels that had been now calling him a terrorist mastermind who had paid assassins to gun down an activist against the Khalistan separatist motion.

They known as him a member of the Worldwide Sikh Youth Federation, which is on Canada’s listing of terrorist teams, and accused him of working with Pakistan’s ISI intelligence service.

The data was attributed to a “file” of India’s counter-terrorism department, the Nationwide Investigation Company. Tellingly maybe, the picture of Sidhu featured on information broadcasts was one he had supplied the Indian authorities when he utilized for a journey visa in 2018.

Though the CBSA informed Indian reporters there was no proof supporting their claims, the tales stay on-line. Occasions Now characterised the CBSA’s denial as “defiance” towards India following a “so-called investigation.”

Because the story made its approach by means of the echo chamber of India’s information shops and social media customers, the threats piled up. On X, a person posted an aerial picture of Sidhu’s dwelling taken from Google Earth and wrote, “His tackle. Go and kill him.”

He reported the incidents to police in Abbotsford. B.C., the place he lived. They informed him India had “beforehand circulated false terrorism allegations towards 9 different individuals, and that a type of individuals had been murdered below suspicious circumstances,” the swimsuit alleges.

“Given this historical past, the police warned Sunny to be extraordinarily cautious, and to take security measures comparable to altering his look, switching his car, checking his car for GPS or different monitoring gadgets, taking totally different routes to and from work, and vacating his household dwelling.”

However the CBSA ignored his request to be transferred to the port of Vancouver, the place safety was tighter, his legal professionals argued. To make issues worse, they mentioned, the company despatched one of many Indian information reviews to each worker in an e mail blast.

In the meantime, colleagues allegedly joked about Sidhu making bombs out of fertilizer at his household farm in B.C.’s Fraser Valley, and requested how his “mates in Hamas” had been doing.

It isn’t straightforward being the chosen weapon of a disinformation marketing campaign by a rustic of just about 1.5-billion individuals. The threats wore Sidhu down. He anxious about his household, his security and the influence on his in any other case unblemished profession.

Sidhu was identified with scientific despair, anxiousness and post-traumatic stress dysfunction. He started seeing a counsellor, paying out of pocket.

On March 3, 2025, the CBSA concluded that Sidhu confronted no threats to his security, based on the lawsuit. No additional motion was warranted, based on the company, which closed its office evaluation into his safety issues with out even interviewing him, the legal professionals alleged.

“This conclusion was incomprehensible, ludicrous and tone deaf particularly given the a number of express threats to Sunny’s security, the concerted doxxing makes an attempt and the numerous warnings from regulation enforcement companies with information of the dangers to his security,” they wrote.

Sidhu was solely handled that approach due to CBSA administration’s notion that, being of Sikh heritage, he was extra prone to sympathize with Khalistan extremists, based on the allegations.

The swimsuit alleges the CBSA was “negligent, reckless, careless, and failed to satisfy the requirements of the responsibility of care of a reliable employer.”

For its half, India additionally owes him redress for its “extended disinformation and smear marketing campaign,” which consisted of “widespread proliferation of blatantly false and defamatory allegations.”

Stewart.Bell@globalnews.ca