US Sen­a­tors, Con­gress­men, Con­gress­women and US Sikh ac­tivists are deeply con­cerned and ask­ing, “Who’s next on the list? The re­cent US in­dict­ment has brought to light a grave con­cern long held by the Sikh com­mu­nity: the tar­geted cam­paign against Sikh ac­tivists by In­dian au­thor­i­ties. This rev­e­la­tion, un­der­scored by the as­sas­si­na­tion of promi­nent Cana­dian Sikh leader Hard­eep Singh Ni­j­jar and the at­tempted as­sas­si­na­tion of an Amer­i­can cit­i­zen, the killing of a Sikh mil­i­tant Paramjit Singh Pan­jwar, the sus­pi­cions of the sud­den pass­ing away of Sikh pro-free­dom ac­tivist Av­tar Singh Khanda in the UK, has val­i­dated the fears and ac­cu­sa­tions of the Sikh di­as­pora re­gard­ing In­di­a’s transna­tional op­er­a­tions against them.  WSN ed­i­tor Jag­mo­han Singh pre­sents an up­date on Sikh con­cerns world­wide.

Hardeep Singh Ni­j­jar’s mur­der in June out­side a Sikh tem­ple in British Co­lum­bia was a shock­ing in­ci­dent that deeply res­onated within the Sikh com­mu­nity. For years, Sikh lead­ers and or­ga­ni­za­tions have been vo­cal about hu­man rights vi­o­la­tions by the In­dian state, of­ten fac­ing se­vere back­lash and ac­cu­sa­tions of anti-na­tional ac­tiv­i­ties.

The in­dict­ment, de­tail­ing the in­volve­ment of In­dian agents in Ni­j­jar’s as­sas­si­na­tion and an­other planned at­tack in New York City, un­der­scores a pat­tern of ag­gres­sive ac­tions by In­dian in­tel­li­gence against Sikh ac­tivists abroad.

US Con­gress­woman Il­han Omar has re­acted sharply to the re­cent in­dict­ment. On Plat­form X, she re­marked, “This is deeply con­cern­ing and part of a pat­tern of ex­tra­ju­di­cial killings and as­sas­si­na­tions by the In­dian gov­ern­ment. We must seek full ac­count­abil­ity for the In­dian gov­ern­ment—a gov­ern­ment with a trou­bling record of hu­man rights abuses.”

Con­gress­woman Mary Gay Scan­lon has made a cat­e­goric state­ment as can be seen from her tweet.

Po­lit­i­cal vi­o­lence has no place in our coun­try.

As co-chair of the Amer­i­can Sikh Con­gres­sional Cau­cus, I'm proud to stand with our Sikh com­mu­nity against transna­tional re­pres­sion. https://​t.co/​naPVd9­fIFJ

— Con­gress­woman Mary Gay Scan­lon (@Rep­MGS) No­vem­ber 29, 2023

Kan­war Pal Singh, leader of Dal Khalsa had then cat­e­gor­i­cally stated that “Dal Khalsa has no doubt what­so­ever that In­di­a’s RAW is be­hind the killings of Sikh ac­tivists in Pak­istan and Canada. Even the death of Sikh ac­tivist Khanda in the UK is un­der a cloud.”

Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Sim­ran­jit Singh Mann had also cat­e­gor­i­cally stated that “What Cana­dian Prime Min­is­ter Justin Trudeau has said is a vin­di­ca­tion of our stand over the last decades. It is time for the world com­mu­nity to act with­out any fur­ther de­lay.”

The Sikh com­mu­ni­ty’s re­ac­tion to these de­vel­op­ments is a mix of vin­di­ca­tion and re­newed ap­pre­hen­sion. The long-held be­lief that In­dian au­thor­i­ties are en­gag­ing in what they term transna­tional ter­ror­ism, of­ten col­lab­o­rat­ing with lo­cal crim­i­nals to tar­get Sikh ac­tivists, seems to be gain­ing trac­tion with this new ev­i­dence. The as­sas­si­na­tion of Ni­j­jar and the planned at­tack in New York City are not iso­lated in­ci­dents but part of a co­or­di­nated ef­fort to si­lence Sikh dis­sent in­ter­na­tion­ally.

Sikh Amer­i­cans are fear­ful of ap­pre­hen­sions. Many are re­act­ing in­di­vid­u­ally and are lob­by­ing with their rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

In­di­a’s Amer­i­can death squad in­dict­ment. Amer­i­ca’s Sikhs want an­swers: who else at risk, & what is US gov­ern­ment do­ing about as­sas­si­na­tion at­tempts on US cit­i­zens? In­dian-Amer­i­can Dems in Con­gress strangely silent. @RoKhanna? @Rep­Bera?@ShriThanedar @Con­gress­man­Raja? @Rep­Jaya­pal? https://​t.co/​Ld­WjV34kOl

— Harmeet K. Dhillon (@pn­ja­ban) No­vem­ber 29, 2023

The lack of im­me­di­ate ar­rests in Ni­j­jar’s case had left the com­mu­nity seek­ing jus­tice, which they now hope will be served with the ar­rest and ex­tra­di­tion of Nikhil Gupta, the In­dian na­tional al­legedly in­volved in these plots. Gup­ta’s trial is an­tic­i­pated to re­veal more de­tails about the op­er­a­tions against Sikh ac­tivists and pos­si­bly shed light on the broader strat­egy of the In­dian gov­ern­ment.

Sikh ac­tivists have long faced chal­lenges when ac­cus­ing the In­dian gov­ern­ment of hu­man rights vi­o­la­tions. Of­ten, these ac­cu­sa­tions are met with se­vere crit­i­cism, la­bel­ing the ac­tivists as anti-na­tional or pro-sep­a­ratist. This has cre­ated an en­vi­ron­ment where the Sikh com­mu­nity feels their con­cerns and griev­ances are not only dis­re­garded but also crim­i­nal­ized.

The in­ter­na­tional com­mu­ni­ty’s re­sponse to these de­vel­op­ments is of sig­nif­i­cant in­ter­est to the Sikh di­as­pora. Prime Min­is­ter Justin Trudeau’s ini­tial stand in Canada’s par­lia­ment, ac­cus­ing In­dia of ex­trater­ri­to­r­ial as­sas­si­na­tion, was met with skep­ti­cism and iso­la­tion. How­ever, with the emer­gence of this in­dict­ment, there is hope that the in­ter­na­tional per­spec­tive might shift, of­fer­ing sup­port and recog­ni­tion to the Sikh com­mu­ni­ty’s long-stand­ing con­cerns.

50k+ Sikhs live in NYC.
How do they know who’s who? Threat of vi­o­lence has be­come very real in Amer­ica.
West­ern lead­ers started call­ing In­dia out for tar­get­ing peo­ple even for peace­ful ex­pres­sion.
You can’t be killing peo­ple for their views in democ­ra­cies.https://​t.co/​aN­WRbMT7uu

— Harinder Singh | ਹਰਿੰਦਰ ਸਿੰਘ (@1Force) No­vem­ber 30, 2023

The Sikh com­mu­nity views these re­cent de­vel­op­ments as a crit­i­cal junc­ture. They are a val­i­da­tion of their fears and a call for the in­ter­na­tional com­mu­nity to ac­knowl­edge and ad­dress the ag­gres­sive tac­tics em­ployed by the In­dian gov­ern­ment against Sikh ac­tivists abroad. The hope is that these rev­e­la­tions will lead to greater un­der­stand­ing and sup­port for the Sikh com­mu­ni­ty’s strug­gle for jus­tice and hu­man rights.