Members of Metro Vancouver’s Sikh community demonstrated outside the Indian consulate in Vancouver on Friday, amid international tensions over allegations of Indian interference in Canada.
The demonstrators were marking 480 days since the murder of B.C. gurdwara president and Khalistan independence activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey.
Demonstrators called for the permanent closure of India’s consulates in Vancouver and Toronto, saying Canada’s expulsion of Indian diplomats was a “positive step” in protecting Canadian Sikhs. But they said it was not sufficient, alleging India continues to operate networks in Canada from the consulates.
Earlier this week, the Canadian government expelled six Indian diplomats on allegations of “a targeted campaign against Canadian citizens by agents linked to the government of India.”
The RCMP said on Monday that it had a significant amount of information on criminal activity orchestrated by agents of the Indian government.
Mounties said they have evidence that Indian diplomats and consular officials based in Canada are leveraging their official position to engage in “clandestine activities,” including homicides, violent threats and intimidation.
“The Sikh community of Canada has been calling the Indian diplomats out from day one,” said Gurkeerat Singh, spokesperson for the Guru Nanak Singh Gurdwara that Nijjar led.
“So this is welcomed, and there is a feeling of validation there, definitely.”
Nijjar was gunned down outside the gurdwara in June 2023, an attack supporters say was retaliation for his activism aimed at creating an independent Sikh homeland in the Punjab region of India.
Demonstrator Imren Kaur said she believed Nijjar was killed at the gurdwara specifically to send a message to B.C. Sikhs.
“Gurdwaras are supposedly the Sikhs’ safest place, but the Indian state assassinated our leader at the back gate of our gurdwara sahib letting us know that it will come to attack us anywhere if we try to ask for our own land,” she said.
“It is good to know that India is being exposed in front of the entire world and that we are not looking like the ones that are just spreading our own propaganda.”
Despite the expulsion of diplomats, Kaur said many Sikh activists still fear for their safety, adding she knew of nine people who have been told by CSIS that their lives are under threat.
India has long denied any involvement in Nijjar’s killing and accused Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday of pursuing a “political agenda.”
MPs announced Friday that they will launch a parliamentary committee to probe the new allegations of foreign interference.
Friday’s demonstration came just one day after the U.S. Justice Department charged a former Indian intelligence officer with plotting to kill Sikh separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun in New York City.