Murder at the temple: The conflicting legacies of a B.C. Sikh leader | 24CA News

Hardeep Singh Nijjar was a plumber who served as president of a Sikh temple in Surrey, B.C. He was additionally wished in India, the place he was accused of being a frontrunner of a militant separatist group.

That contradiction didn’t die with him when he was gunned down in a temple parking zone on Sunday night time. Since then, he has been each mourned as a group chief, and forged as a terrorist.

Speaking to Global News lengthy earlier than his killing, the 45-year-old insisted India was falsely smearing him in retaliation for his activism in assist of Sikhs.

Whether or not that was true, India wished him arrested. The RCMP did so as soon as, however he was not charged, though he was placed on Canada’s no-fly checklist.

The investigation into his homicide is going down amid considerations India might have grown uninterested in ready for his arrest and ordered his killing.

His buddy Gurpatwant Singh Pannun stated Nijjar informed him Saturday that gang members had warned him Indian intelligence brokers had put a bounty on his head.

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service additionally informed Najjir that they had data that he was “under threat from professional assassins,” Pannun stated.

“We’re open to any potential motive at this time,” the RCMP murder unit investigating Nijjar’s killing stated on Wednesday.

But investigators are grappling with a query they to date can’t reply: if not an excessive act of international interference by India, then what else might or not it’s?

Nijjar arrived at Toronto’s Pearson airport on Feb. 10, 1997, utilizing a fraudulent passport that recognized him as “Ravi Sharma,” in line with his immigration information, obtained by Global News.

His refugee declare stated he feared persecution in India as a result of he belonged to “a particular social group, namely, individuals associated with Sikh militants.”

In the account he gave immigration officers, he stated his troubles started in 1990, throughout a police crackdown on the insurgency in Punjab.

Amid assaults by militant teams searching for independence for the Sikh-majority state, police arrested Nijjar’s brother Jarinder, he wrote in a sworn affidavit.

Following the arrest, Nijjar stated his father sought assist from a human rights group. As a outcome, his father was himself arrested and tortured, he stated.

In 1995, police got here for Nijjar as properly, he wrote. They took him to the police station within the metropolis of Phillaur, he stated.

To coax him to surrender the whereabouts of his father and brother, police hanged him together with his palms behind his again and electrocuted his “private parts,” he stated.

“When they would do bad things, and beat me, they would ask about my brother Jatinder Singh and father accusing me that I shelter militants,” he stated.

Threatened with dying, he stated he organized a 50,000 rupee ($800) bribe to safe his launch. He lower off his hair to vary his look and hid out at a relative’s home.

Police raided the house in Uttar Pradesh in 1996, however Nijjar stated he was away working as a “truck helper,” and his uncle was arrested as an alternative.

“I know that my life would be in grave danger if I had to go back to my country, India,” he wrote in his affidavit, dated June 9, 1998.

But Canadian refugee officers didn’t imagine him. They stated a letter he submitted to assist his narrative had been fabricated.

The letter was supposedly written by an Indian doctor who stated he had handled Nijjar after police electrocuted his “intesticals.”

The misspelling of a physique half, along with an account that refugee officers discovered implausible, led them to dismiss him as unreliable and untrustworthy.

“The panel does not believe that the claimant was arrested by the police and that he was tortured by the police,” in line with the ruling.

Eleven days after his refugee declare was rejected, Nijjar married a B.C. lady who sponsored him to immigrate as her partner.

“I do not want to live apart from my wife even a single day,” he wrote, as he launched into his second try at a life in Canada.

On his software kind, he was requested whether or not he was related to a gaggle that used or advocated “armed struggle or violence to reach political, religious or social objectives.”

He wrote: “No.”

To present the authenticity of the union, he submitted a marriage invitation, marriage ceremony photographs, and an image of the couple cuddling in a chair.

But immigration officers thought-about it a wedding of comfort and rejected Nijjar’s software.

They additionally famous his spouse, who labored for a Surrey produce firm, had arrived in Canada in 1997, sponsored by a distinct husband.

Nijjar appealed to the courts and misplaced in 2001, however he later recognized himself as a Canadian citizen.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada declined to remark, citing privateness laws.

In Surrey, Nijjar ran a small plumbing business and fathered two youngsters, whereas additionally agitating for Sikh rights.

He travelled to Geneva in 2013 to ask the U.N. Human Rights Council to acknowledge anti-Sikh violence as a genocide.

At U.N. headquarters in New York in June 2014, he lobbied for a referendum for the independence of India’s Punjab state, he wrote in a letter.

Five months later, on Nov. 14, 2014, India issued a warrant for his arrest by means of Interpol’s National Central Bureau in New Delhi.

The doc described him as a “mastermind/active member” of the Khalistan Tiger Force militant group.

A abstract of the case stated Nijjar’s identify had surfaced following the 2007 bombing of the Shingar Cinema in Punjab.

Suspects arrested for the blast confessed they had been “acting under the instruction of Hardeep Singh Nijjar,” in line with the abstract.

Pannun, a Canadian lawyer and activist, stated Najjir was accused of conspiracy within the cinema bombing however all the opposite suspects had been acquitted.

“So who did he conspire with? Nobody,” he stated.

A second Interpol discover in 2016 made contemporary accusations towards Nijjar, calling him the “mastermind and key conspirator of many terrorist acts in India.”

Like earlier than, the abstract stated suspects had pointed to Nijjar as having handed on the orders of the Tiger Force management.

It stated he was wished for committing acts of terrorism, in addition to recruiting and fundraising, and confronted a attainable life sentence.

Confronted with the allegations, Nijjar denied them in a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, calling them “baseless and fabricated.”

He portrayed them as a marketing campaign to discredit him in response to his activism, and stated his father and brother had been warned that, “If Nijjar does not stop his anti-India campaign, we will implicate him in criminal cases.”

Despite the allegations of terrorism, Nijjar took over the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in 2018, turning into president of the federally registered charity.

According to Surrey provincial court docket information, Nijjar was charged with assault in March 2019, however the case was stayed that December.

A later dispute over a business printing press might have put Nijjar at odds with Ripudaman Singh Malik, who was acquitted of involvement within the lethal 1985 Air India bombings.

The machine was bought by Malik and a associate, who supposed to make use of it to print Sikh non secular scripture, in line with court docket paperwork.

Malik handed the press over to Nijjar in November 2020 “for safekeeping,” in line with B.C. Supreme Court information.

But Nijjar refused to return it, a civil swimsuit alleged. Malik was murdered in July 2022. A lawsuit launched in February 2023 sought the return of the gear.

Recently, Nijjar was engaged on a deliberate referendum on independence for Indian’s Punjab that was scheduled for Sept. 18, stated Pannun, who’s with the group Sikhs For Justice.

But he was nervous about his security.

Pannun stated Nijjar cellphone him and stated gang members had warned him that Indian intelligence brokers had positioned a bounty on each their heads.

Nijjar additionally disclosed he had been approached by CSIS officers who had been involved, Pannun stated, including he was to fulfill them on June 20.

“Additionally, it was only a few weeks earlier that India’s NIA (National Investigation Agency) had announced a reward of $1 million (CDN$16,000) for Nijjar,” Pannun stated.

On Sunday, Nijjar left the temple and acquired right into a grey Ram 1500 pickup. He was leaving the parking zone at simply earlier than 8:30 p.m. when two males shot him by means of the driving force’s window.

Police described them as heavy-set males with lined faces. They fled south to a getaway automobile, police stated on Wednesday.

The World Sikh Organization of Canada has requested for an investigation into whether or not India had a job within the killing.

“Nijjar openly and repeatedly stated that he would be targeted by Indian intelligence and this was made known to CSIS and law enforcement,” the WSO stated.

India has lengthy complained that Canada is a base for extremists lively in separatist violence. In 2018, Canada and India signed a co-operation framework pledging to work collectively on the difficulty.

Pannun stated he believed that after India’s marketing campaign to tarnish Nijjar’s repute failed, he was focused for killing.

He stated he had little doubt India was behind it.

“From the time he started actively campaigning with us, he got noticed and they started pursuing him,” he stated.

Stewart.Bell@globalnews.ca