In a rapidly es­ca­lat­ing diplo­matic con­flict, Canada’s in­ves­ti­ga­tion into the killing of Sikh ac­tivist Hard­eep Singh Ni­j­jar has put In­di­a’s transna­tional re­pres­sion tac­tics un­der global scrutiny. Sikh po­lit­i­cal cir­cles across the Di­as­pora and in home­land Pun­jab are abuzz with the evolv­ing sce­nario. In a state­ment is­sued to­day, Dal Khalsa has hailed Canada and the U.S. for their strong stance, ac­cus­ing In­di­a’s in­tel­li­gence agency RAW of or­ches­trat­ing ex­tra­ju­di­cial op­er­a­tions against Sikh ac­tivists abroad. It is time for the in­ter­na­tional com­mu­nity to hold In­dia ac­count­able for its hu­man rights vi­o­la­tions, says Dal Khalsa. WSN re­ports.

In the wake of Canada’s on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion into the killing of Sikh ac­tivist Hard­eep Singh Ni­j­jar, a Cana­dian cit­i­zen and vo­cal pro­po­nent of Sikh in­de­pen­dence, the Dal Khalsa, a promi­nent Sikh po­lit­i­cal group, stated that its long­stand­ing al­le­ga­tions of In­di­a’s transna­tional re­pres­sion have been vin­di­cated.

Dal Khalsa praised Cana­dian Prime Min­is­ter Justin Trudeau and the Royal Cana­dian Mounted Po­lice (RCMP) for their per­sis­tent ef­forts in un­cov­er­ing what it claims to be the In­dian state’s in­volve­ment in Ni­j­jar’s as­sas­si­na­tion, an ac­cu­sa­tion that In­dia has ve­he­mently de­nied.

Speak­ing on the mat­ter with the World Sikh News, Dal Khal­sa’s po­lit­i­cal af­fairs sec­re­tary, Kan­war Pal Singh, said that the rev­e­la­tions have val­i­dated the or­ga­ni­za­tion’s warn­ings about In­di­a’s use of covert op­er­a­tions to tar­get Sikh ac­tivists liv­ing abroad.

He em­pha­sized that while it has taken decades for the global com­mu­nity to rec­og­nize the scale of In­di­a’s al­leged hu­man rights vi­o­la­tions, the strong re­ac­tions from both Canada and the United States sig­nal that In­di­a’s tac­tics are no longer be­ing ig­nored.

“While that sounds com­fort­ing, we have been at the re­ceiv­ing end for a long time and we are itch­ing for this de­vel­op­ment to reach its log­i­cal con­clu­sion in the in­dict­ment of the In­dian state at the in­ter­na­tional level,” said Kan­war Pal Singh, in re­ply to a WSN query.

Dal Khalsa, how­ever, main­tains that In­di­a’s re­fusal to co­op­er­ate in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is a clear in­di­ca­tion of its cul­pa­bil­ity, and it ap­plauded Canada for up­hold­ing the rights and se­cu­rity of its Sikh cit­i­zens.

Kan­war Pal Singh, po­lit­i­cal sec­re­tary Dal Khalsa and Sikh ide­o­logue

Canada’s as­sertive in­ves­ti­ga­tion into the case has sparked a diplo­matic rift with In­dia, with Ot­tawa ex­pelling In­dian diplo­mats and ac­cus­ing New Delhi of ob­struct­ing the in­quiry. In re­sponse, In­dia dis­missed the al­le­ga­tions and re­tal­i­ated with its own diplo­matic mea­sures. Dal Khalsa, how­ever, main­tains that In­di­a’s re­fusal to co­op­er­ate in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is a clear in­di­ca­tion of its cul­pa­bil­ity, and it ap­plauded Canada for up­hold­ing the rights and se­cu­rity of its Sikh cit­i­zens.

The ex­haus­tive in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the Royal Cana­dian Mounted Po­lice (RCMP) si­lences the many dis­trac­tions that have been prof­fered by the In­dian Min­istry of Ex­ter­nal Af­fairs seek­ing ev­i­dence for the mur­der of Hard­eep Singh Ni­j­jar and the threat to lives of oth­ers.  The RCMP has said, “Over the past few years, and more re­cently, law en­force­ment agen­cies in Canada, in­clud­ing the RCMP, have suc­cess­fully in­ves­ti­gated and charged a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of in­di­vid­u­als for their di­rect in­volve­ment in homi­cides, ex­tor­tions and other crim­i­nal acts of vi­o­lence.”

Re­act­ing to this, Kan­war Pal Singh told the World Sikh News, “This is only the tip of the ice­berg. The whole state­ment of RCMP is an eye opener. RCMP has con­cluded that, “there has been well over a dozen cred­i­ble and im­mi­nent threats to life which have led to the con­duct of Duty to Warn by law en­force­ment with mem­bers of the South Asian com­mu­nity, and specif­i­cally mem­bers of the pro-Khal­is­tan move­ment.”

The height­ened at­ten­tion to the safety and se­cu­rity of Sikh Cana­di­ans is a step that should have been taken much sooner. For decades, we have con­sis­tently raised con­cerns about the ac­tions of the In­dian state against Sikhs, par­tic­u­larly those ad­vo­cat­ing for Sikh rights. De­spite our ef­forts, these warn­ings have of­ten gone un­heard, and the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion is a re­flec­tion of the long-stand­ing chal­lenges that Sikh ac­tivists and the com­mu­nity at large have faced over the past forty years.

Dal Khalsa

“The cur­rent fo­cus on pub­lic safety and se­cu­rity of Sikh Cana­di­ans should have been done much ear­lier,” said the po­lit­i­cal sec­re­tary of the pro-Sikh free­dom po­lit­i­cal party.

“We have been cry­ing hoarse of what In­dia has done to Sikhs in gen­eral and Sikh ac­tivists in par­tic­u­lar for the last forty years.”

Cit­ing Canada’s han­dling of the case, Dal Khalsa pointed out that the in­ves­ti­ga­tion has ex­posed the in­volve­ment of In­dian in­tel­li­gence ser­vices, par­tic­u­larly the Re­search and Analy­sis Wing (RAW), in what it de­scribes as a broader cam­paign of transna­tional ex­tra­ju­di­cial op­er­a­tions.

Dal Khalsa has once again re­it­er­ated that In­di­a’s Na­tional Se­cu­rity Ad­vi­sor, Ajit Doval, has or­ches­trated a strat­egy to sup­press Sikh voices abroad, a move un­equiv­o­cally backed by In­di­a’s po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship.

Canada is not the lone ranger in this case. It has also drawn at­ten­tion from the United States, with U.S. in­tel­li­gence re­port­edly play­ing a role in pres­sur­ing In­dian of­fi­cials. The ar­rest of Vikram Ya­dav, a for­mer In­dian in­tel­li­gence of­fi­cer linked to ex­tra­ju­di­cial ac­tiv­i­ties, was cited by Dal Khalsa as ev­i­dence that the U.S. has in­ten­si­fied scrutiny on In­di­a’s ac­tions, fur­ther em­bold­en­ing Cana­dian au­thor­i­ties to pur­sue their in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Dal Khalsa ex­pressed con­cerns over rev­e­la­tions that In­dia has al­legedly used crim­i­nal syn­di­cates to carry out its op­er­a­tions, draw­ing par­al­lels with ear­lier in­ci­dents in­volv­ing no­to­ri­ous In­dian gang­sters.

The group urged the in­ter­na­tional com­mu­nity, in­clud­ing the Eu­ro­pean Union and the United Na­tions, to hold In­dia ac­count­able for its ac­tions, warn­ing that global pres­sure is the only lan­guage In­dia re­sponds to.

Dal Khalsa re­mains hope­ful that con­tin­ued in­ter­na­tional at­ten­tion will re­sult in greater ac­count­abil­ity for what it de­scribes as a sys­tem­atic cam­paign of re­pres­sion tar­get­ing Sikh com­mu­ni­ties world­wide, reads the state­ment.