Much is being said across the world about the massive controversy between India and Canada, that was triggered by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s statement in his parliament, accusing India and its law-enforcement agencies of the targeted killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar; a wanted criminal with a Interpol arrest warrant in his name, who was given safe haven by Canada in-spite of his association to terrorists activities.
The news agency Associated Press calls him ‘a plumber who was an activist for the formation of a Sikh homeland’. That would be the same as calling the al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden a civil construction engineer. The fact is that Nijjar was a terrorist, a drug distribution gangster and was involved in extortion and murder. Credible evidence to these facts had been provided by the Indian Govt to the Canadians repeatedly; and these reports were absolutely ignored. But we the readers know all of this from the media.
What we are not fully aware of is the role played by the Canadian law-enforcement and Intelligence organizations, specifically the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) which is the equivalent of the Indian CBI, and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) which is the equivalent of India’s Intelligence Bureau (IB) and R&AW, rolled into one.
Prior to 1984, security intelligence in Canada was the purview of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). However, during the 1970s, there were allegations that the RCMP’s Security Service Division, the predecessor to CSIS, had been involved in numerous illegal activities. These illegal activities included and were not restricted to assault with a weapon, manslaughter, rape, theft, breaking and entering without a warrant, sexual harassment of convicts, sexual and mental harassment of female RCMP employees, a pattern of lying to the Canadian Govt officials and other assorted offenses. [For details, click this link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_excessive_police_force_incidents_in_ Canada/]
The Canadian Press in its report of 19 September 2023 has stated that the slain terrorist Nijjar was meeting the Canadian Security Intelligence Service officers “once or twice a week” including one or two days before his June 18 killing, with another meeting scheduled for two days after his death. The question is why? Why were the Canadian spy agency officials in regular meetings with a known fugitive from justice?
Spy agencies recruit criminals (accused or convicted) based on three parameters: greed, revenge and ideology. Njjar would have been ideal for all three categories; the need for money for his activities, revenge against India and propagating the ideology of Khalistan. But what was the advantage that CSIS was hoping to attain? Being a professional agency, it can be assumed that they were building cases against Khalistani terrorists and the Punjabi-Canadian narco-gangs operating within Canada. In reality, their political masters are shielding Khalistani operatives from prosecuting within Canada and offering them safe haven and an unrestricted license to operate their divisive agenda inside Canada. The requirements of the political vote-bank support from the radical Sikh community clearly surpasses the safety and security of the Canadian nation and its people.
Therefore, the role of CSIS can be construed to be two-fold. One, would be to have an insider man in the Khalistani movement who could give advance information about threats to the Canadian society within country, and the second could be, a puppet to use in foreign policy strategy of the Canadian Govt. The former could be considered as standard operating procedure of any intelligence agency and would not be considered abnormal. However, it is the second reason that raises warning flags for India.
Historically, Canada has been known to be weak in matters of law-enforcement, military operations and counter insurgency. Being isolated from most of the world by two oceans and protected militarily by their immediate neighbor to the South, the USA; Canada is looked up as a non-dependable and passive member of the global power structure of the Western countries. In August 2005, the deputy Director of Operations of the CSIS, Jack Hooper had testified before the Canadian Senate Committee on National Security and Defense, and had explained to the politicians of that committee, that Canada had a problem with terrorists in general and with home-grown terrorists in particular.
His statements were met with disbelief by the Members of Parliament, and it was openly speculated in the media that Hooper was vastly exaggerating. This reaction reflected Canada’s attitude towards terrorism, as somebody else’s problem, and not their concern.
But the reality is ugly. Whether Canadians realize it or refuse to accept it, Canada has from a long time back, become a source of international terrorism and an operational base for global terror; a country where the world’s deadliest extremists’ movements are active and thriving. According to the 2016 report of CSIS, there are a number of terrorist’s groups operating in Canada; engaging in fund-raising, procuring arms and ammunition, spreading propaganda, recruiting followers and planning cross-border terrorism.
Armenian terrorists were the first to recognize Canada’s potential as a safe haven, followed by the Khalistanis from India, the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka, the Palestine factions and the Hezbollah. By 1998, every major terrorist group in the world was operating in Canada. The Canadian Senate Sub-committee on security and intelligence reported way back in 1999, that Canada had become a ‘venue of opportunity’ for terrorists. So, what are these terrorist organizations doing in Canada? The answer is, everything.
They have established their own international support network to raise funding for terrorism and spread their ideology through every media channel. With offices throughout their regions of influence, their socially acceptable activities support their organizations with money, false passports and IDs, information, media outreach and most importantly, their craving for credibility. Canada is the land of opportunity for terrorists seeking funding to finance their campaigns.
The Khalistan movement in particular, depends on the Punjabi and Sikh diaspora for funding and support, in part due to its tightly knit community structure. Added to this, job opportunities are plenty in Canada and the welfare system is generous. Immigrants are entitled to all the rights of Canadian citizens. As an added advantage to terrorist organizations, until December 2001 it was absolutely legal to collect money in Canada for terrorists’ groups. Canada’s anti-terrorism law now prohibits this, but its enforcement is proving to be a difficult task since the law is not retroactive, which means that it cannot be used to prosecute terrorists for crimes committed before it was enacted.
The other type of fund-raising is through criminal activities. Terrorists groups in Canada are involved in bank fraud, migrant smuggling, human sex slave trafficking, loan frauds, extortion, theft, money laundering and drug distribution. This has resulted in Canadian terrorists killing people across the world.
The 1993 World Trade Center bombings in New York, suicide bombings in Israel, political killings in India, the 1985 bombing of Air India’s flight that killed 329 people, the 1996 Colombo truck bomb that killed over 100 civilians, and the Bali bombing of 2002 are some of the known terrorists attacks linked back to Canada. The singular reason why terrorists have unrestricted advantages in Canada is the Canadian government’s long-standing reluctance to confront the challenges of terrorism. As important as this is, its equally important to understand the complacency of the Canadian society towards terrorism. The Canadian society worries more about their government infringing heavily on their human rights and civil liberties. This complacency affects its politicians too. In its handling of terrorist groups operating in Canada, the government has missed opportunities to shut down their activities and has constantly display an astounding level of indifference to countries affected by terrorism. The Canadian branch of Babbar Khalsa (which is internationally designated as a terrorist organization) was allowed to be registered as a charity organization and to issue tax exemption receipts to financial donors.
The Liberal political party of Justin Trudeau as well as the other political parties of Canada have avoided any public discussion on the role of terrorists in their country. In their logic of sound political strategy, to take a stand against terrorism was to risk losing the support of those groups who buy influence on the promise of delivering the support of ethnic vote-banks. One such influencer group is the New Democratic Party which currently gives crucial support and stability to Justin Trudeau’s government. Incidentally, the NDP was formed in 1961 and had supported the minority government formed by Pierre Trudeau’s (Justin Trudeau’s father’s) Liberal Party from 1972 to 1974. The Khalistani influence started on October 1, 2017, when Jagmeet Singh, won the leadership vote to head the NDP. He is the first person of a minority group to lead a major Canadian federal political party on a permanent basis. He is also a self-declared hardline supporter of the Khalistani movement.
The biggest danger to Canada today is the single-minded focus of its activists, politicians and a large section of the academia, on the rights of those accused of terrorism, without any regard to the right of Canadian citizens to defend themselves from the threat of terrorism. A foreign security official once stated publicly that, “Canada is a land of trusting fools”. Canadian intelligence authorities have been disrupting terrorists’ groups frequently. But, after being caught the worst that happens to these accused terrorists is deportation. And even then, most of those ordered out of the country never leave. Under the Canadian legal system, they are allowed to appeal multiple times against deportation.
CSIS has been investigating Sikh extremism since August 1984, after the Sikh youth group ISYF, aka the Dashmesh Regiment, had allegedly complied a hitlist of moderate Sikhs in Canada. However, the surveillance tactics of the CSIS left a lot to be desired; and due to their lack of adequate resources, low interest to investigate every scrap of information received and inter-agency bickering with the RCMP, resulted with their on and off surveillance of Talwinder Singh Parmar, whose extradition was sought by India since May 1982. Even with actionable information received in advance of the possibility of an attack against Air India, the CSIS was unable to stop it. After this tragedy, they could never convict Parmar for the planning and carrying out the bombing of Air India’s “Kanishka” airplane, and it was left to the Indian authorities to terminate Parmar permanently in an encounter in Jalandhar, Punjab on 15 October 1992.
The very same policies that made Canada the safe haven for international terrorists also assisted in the formation of the Punjabi–Canadian organized crime gangs. These Punjabi origin gangs of Canada are today among the top 5 organized crime hierarchy across that nation. The Dosanjh gang of brothers Ranjit and Jimsher Dosanjh, Rajinder Singh Sandhu and Suminder Singh Grewal of the Hell’s Angels, and Gurmit Singh Dhak were some of the early gangsters who developed deep ties with the Khalistani terrorists in those early days of the terrorist–gangster unity. In recent times, a major drug bust conducted in April 2021 broke up an Indo-Canadian trafficking network primarily based in Brampton, Ontario. Of the 28 arrested, the majority were India-born Punjabi men. Police seized $2.3 million worth of drugs.
The main trade of the Indo-Canadian crime groups are murder-for-hire operations, along with arms trafficking, racketeering, extortion, assassinations, and the trafficking of cocaine, heroin, MDMA, methamphetamine and cannabis. Details of various gangs are at this link https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Punjabi-Canadian_organized_ crime
Pakistan’s spy agency the Inter-Services Intelligence Agency (ISI) has turned several chiefs of Sikh terror groups into drug smugglers. It is an established fact that the ISI is using Khalistani terrorists to smuggle narcotics and provide funds to terror various groups for anti-India activities. Recently, the Peel Regional Police in Canada arrested more than a dozen people on different charges including mail theft. Most of the arrested individuals are of Punjabi origin. The investigators claimed that the accused parties were stealing mail by breaking into Canada post mailboxes or simply grabbing it from roadside residential mailboxes. They would target cheques, credit cards, and identification documents and often altered and deposited the stolen cheques into various banks before withdrawing the funds.
The Sunday Guardian reported in August 2022, that an attempt for a large-scale revival of the Khalistani movement was being coordinated from Pakistan with the involvement of narco-terrorists in India and Canada. It is speculated in foreign intelligence agencies that the Indo-Canadian criminal network has entered and is deeply entrenched within the Canadian law enforcement agencies including the RCMP and CSIS. Pro–Khalistan elements are now exercising significant influence inside Canada’s government offices because of the electoral power that some in their community wields in that country. Apart from the radical elements, descendants of Pakistani Army officials, who migrated to Canada in the latter part of 1900 and are now naturalised Canadian citizens, are occupying crucial posts in different offices in Canada and are contributing in nurturing, protecting and expanding the narco-terrorism ring that operates from Canada, and which has now become the biggest hub for sending drugs to European countries and the United Kingdom.
The deaths of three Khalistani leaders in rapid succession in countries other than India; with two manifest killings and a third that has been brought into dispute, have created a storm of speculation regarding the possibilities of covert operations by India’s external intelligence agency, R&AW. Most of this commentary is devoid of context, and its tone and content are based entirely on the sentiments and affiliations of the media ‘analysts’.
While the death of three Khalistani extremists in widely dispersed locations abroad over a relatively brief period of 45 days is certainly surprising and may call for close scrutiny, it does fit into a broader context of narco-criminal alliances and their activities have seen numerous incidents of violence, including killing of each other’s members, in the past. While the possibility of covert operations by state agencies cannot automatically be ruled out, the sudden acquisition of capability and intent, and its abrupt operationalisation in multiple cases, does not fit into the profile of a non-violent, slow acting intelligence agency of long-standing.
A careful study of the past deaths of Khalistani terrorists and Indo-Punjabi gang members show a different picture. On November 19, 2022; a prominent Pakistan-based operational commander of the Babbar Khalsa International (BKI), Harvinder Singh aka Rinda, died at a military hospital in Lahore, allegedly due to a drug overdose. Rinda was among the foreign based ‘masterminds’ of the Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG) attack on the Punjab Police Intelligence Headquarters at Mohali in Punjab on May 9, 2022. The incident has also been linked to several gangsters abroad, crucially including Lakhbir Singh aka Landa in Canada, Satbir Singh aka Satnam Singh in Greece, and Yadwinder Singh in the Philippines.
On January 27, 2020, another arms and drug dealer, as well as the then ‘chief’ of the KLF, Harmeet Singh alias ‘Happy PhD’, was killed at the Dera Chahal Gurdwara near Lahore, apparently because of a financial dispute over drug deals with a local Pakistani gang. It is within these murky environments of the Khalistani-narcotics-gangs network, patronized and substantially controlled by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI); that the killing of Paramjit Singh Panjwar needs to be assessed.
Panjwar was deeply involved in the smuggling of heroin, weapons and Fake Indian Currency Notes (FICN) from Pakistan, even as he sought to keep the KCF alive with the revenues generated from these activities. There is as yet no clarity on who killed Panjwar, and the case is unlikely to be solved in Pakistan, where Panjwar’s existence is not even acknowledged, and where his death was reported as the killing of ‘Malik Sardar Singh’, the identity he had been given by the ISI. Furthermore, Panjwar would not be a very high priority target for Indian agencies, were they to begin drawing up any ‘hit lists.’
Hardeep Singh Nijjar, on whose behalf the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has taken on a political risk with his blatantly false statements in his own parliament; has however, been high among India’s concerns about Khalistani elements in Canada. Nijjar had been accused of two killings in Punjab and for organizing terrorist training camps in Canada. Indian intelligence has reported that Nijjar had links with gangster Arshdeep Singh aka Arsh Dalla, to provide the logistics and manpower for several of his operations in Punjab. Nijjar has long been associated with an often-violent Gurudwara politics in Canada, and for his well-known clashes with the principal architect of the Air India flight 182 Kanishka Bombing of 1985, Ripudaman Singh Malik.
On January 23, 2022, at the Guru Nanak Sikh Temple in Surrey, Nijjar ranted against Malik for over an hour, describing him as a “Qaum da gaddaar” (traitor to the nation) and an “agent”, adding that he should be “taught a lesson.” Malik was killed in a gang-style hit, very similar to Nijjar’s own subsequent killing, by two men on 22 June 2022. Investigations into Nijjar’s killing are likely to be a dead-end, as were investigations into the Ripudaman Singh Malik’s killing.
When Justin Trudeau publicly accused India for being involved in Nijjar’s death, his credibility dropped even further than usual; since it is from Canada that a continuous separatist campaign is being fuelled and funded by Canadian citizens and permanent residents of Indian origin, and where extremists openly flaunt their affiliations with terrorists, and their close connections with Justin Trudeau’s ruling Liberal Party.
In Canada, the Punjabi gangster culture is rampant. Twenty-one per cent of gangsters killed in gang wars or police operations since 2006 are of Punjabi origin, while only two per cent of Canada’s population is Punjabi. Of the eleven individuals identified by the Canadian law-enforcement in August 2022 as those who “pose a significant threat to public safety due to their ongoing involvement in gang conflicts and connection to extreme levels of violence”, nine of these listed gangsters were of Punjabi origin. These gangs have come to dominate organised criminal activity in Canada, with fratricidal conflicts within the Punjabi gangs accounting for much of the present gang violence.
Therefore, the more credible explanation of Nijjar’s killing seems to be differences within their own vicious political and criminal connections, rather than the policy of the Indian government.
References:
1. The Sikh Diaspora www.journals.openedition.org
2. Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies www.ipcs.org
3. Canadian Press www.thecanadianpress.com
4. Wikipedia
5. Public Safety Canada www.publicsafety.gc.ca
6. Cold Terror by Stuart Bell
7. The Wilson Centre www.wilsoncenter.org
8. JSTOR www.jstor.org
9. www.justice.gc.ca
