The affair had created a major diplomatic crisis between India and Canada. Almost a year after the assassination of Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in the west of the country, Canadian police announced on Friday May 3 the arrest of three men of Indian nationality suspected of having participated in the crime. At the time of the events, in June 2023, the Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, had mentioned the involvement of the Indian government in the death of this separatist leader, triggering the ire of New Delhi.
Three Indian nationals, two men aged 22 and one aged 28, were arrested Friday morning in Edmonton, in the province of Alberta (west), where they live. They were charged with premeditated murder and conspiracy in connection with the victim's death and imprisoned. All have been in Canada for three to five years, police said during a press conference.
The three suspects are said to have played different roles – shooter, driver and lookout – on June 18, 2023, the day the Sikh leader was killed in the parking lot of the Sikh temple he led in Surrey, a suburb of Vancouver (west).
An activist for the creation of a Sikh state known as Khalistan, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who arrived in Canada in 1997 and became a Canadian citizen in 2015, was wanted by Indian authorities for alleged acts of terrorism and conspiracy to commit murder. Accusations that the 45-year-old man denied, according to the World Organization of Sikhs of Canada, a non-profit group which aims to defend the interests of Canadian Sikhs.
“Absurd” accusations, according to New Delhi
The federal police clarified that the arrests carried out on Friday do not put an end to the investigation, which opened ten months ago. “This investigation does not stop there. We know that other people may have played a role in this homicide and we are determined to find and arrest them,” said Mandeep Mooker, Officer-in-Charge of the Homicide Investigation Team at the RCMP. Canada (RCMP). He also said police were trying to determine “whether there are any links to be made with the Indian government.”
“It’s a bit of a relief to know that the investigation is progressing,” Moninder Singh, close friend of Hardeep Singh Nijjar and spokesperson for the Gurdwara Council of Colombia, reacted to Agence France-Presse. -British, a representative organization of the Sikhs of this province. “It is ultimately India that is responsible and hiring people to assassinate Sikh leaders in foreign countries,” he charged, urging Ottawa to “demand accountability” from the Indian government.
Canada is the country with the largest number of Sikhs outside their home state of Punjab, India.
Another suspicious case in the United States
In September, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau publicly incriminated Indian intelligence services in this affair. New Delhi immediately described these accusations as “absurd”. A month later, the Canadian government was forced to repatriate several dozen diplomats based in India after New Delhi threatened to withdraw their diplomatic immunity.
For its part, the American justice system announced in November that it would prosecute an Indian national accused of having sponsored, at the instigation of a New Delhi agent, a plan to assassinate another Sikh leader, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, lawyer founder of the American organization Sikhs For Justice (SFJ).
