By Wa Lone and Steve Scherer
TORONTO/OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canadian Sikhs staged small protests outside India’s diplomatic missions on Monday, a week after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said there may be a link between New Delhi and the murder of a Sikh separatist advocate in British Columbia.
Trudeau a week ago stood in parliament to say that domestic intelligence agencies were actively pursuing credible allegations tying New Delhi’s agents to the shooting of Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar, 45, in June.
About 100 protesters in Toronto burned an Indian flag and struck a cardboard cut-out of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi with a shoe. About 200 protesters also gathered outside the Vancouver consulate.
In Ottawa, fewer than 100 people gathered in front of the Indian High Commissioner’s office (embassy) in the capital. They waved yellow flags marked with the world “Khalistan”, a reference to their support for making India’s Punjab region an independent state for Sikhs, a cause Nijjar campaigned for.
“We are really thankful to Justin Trudeau… We want no stone left unturned to get to the bottom of this cowardly act,” protester Reshma Singh Bolinas said in Ottawa. Canada should put pressure on India to “stop the killing of innocent people in future.”
Canada is home to about 770,000 Sikhs – the highest population of Sikhs outside their home state of Punjab – and in recent years there have been many demonstrations that have irked India.
India labeled Trudeau’s allegations “absurd”. It warned travelers last week that there were growing “anti-India activities” in Canada, urging “utmost caution” but did not provide evidence or details of specific incidents.
The allegations have put a spotlight on Canada’s Sikh community. Sikhs make up just 2% of India’s 1.4 billion population, but they are a majority in Punjab, a state of 30 million where their religion was born 500 years ago.
“The Indian government used dirty tactics and compromised the sovereignty of Canada,” said Kuljeet Sing, a protester in Toronto and a member of the group Sikhs for Justice.
Canada’s accusations have sparked tit-for-tat retaliation, with each nation expelling diplomats and New Delhi suspending visas for Canadians.
Some of the protesters in both Toronto and Ottawa called for the expulsion of the Indian High Commissioner (ambassador) to Canada, Sanjay Kumar Verma, who earlier said authorities have been informed of the protests and were providing security.
Nijjar, who worked as a plumber, left the north Indian state of Punjab a quarter-century ago and became a Canadian citizen. He has supported the formation of an independent Sikh homeland. India designated him a “terrorist” in July 2020.
The Canadian government has amassed both human and signals intelligence in a months-long investigation into the Sikh separatist leader, CBC News reported last week, citing unidentified sources.
The United States worked closely with Canada on the intelligence pointing toward the possible involvement of Indian agents in the murder of a Canadian citizen in June, a senior Canadian government source told Reuters.
(This story has been corrected to fix the name of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in paragraphs 2, 4, and 12, and Modi in paragraph 3)
(Reporting by Wa Lone and Steve Scherer; Writing by Denny Thomas and Steve Scherer; additional reporting by Jennifer Gauthier in Vancouver; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Jonathan Oatis)
