Khalistan

SURREY, B.C. – Thousands of Sikh voters are expected to turn out today in the Metro Vancouver municipality of Surrey, to vote in an unofficial referendum at the centre of Canada’s ongoing tensions with India.

Organizers say the referendum on Khalistan — an independent state in India proposed by some Sikhs — is taking place at the same Surrey gurdwara where activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar was shot dead in June.

Today’s vote is the second round of the referendum in British Columbia, after organizers said the first ballot on Sept. 10 was so popular that voting couldn’t be completed in one day.

SURREY, B.C. — Canada’s allegations about India’s links to the killing of activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar have significantly bolstered vocal support for the movement calling for an independent Sikh state, said organizers of an upcoming referendum.

All but 21 Canadian diplomats in India have been pulled out of that country, Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly said Thursday, confirming the slashing of diplomatic staff by roughly two-thirds amid ongoing tensions between the two countries.

Joly said India has formally conveyed its plan to Ottawa to strip diplomatic immunity from 41 Canadian diplomats and their 42 family members by Friday.

Canada has facilitated the safe departure of those diplomats and their families from India, she added, noting the stripping of immunity “would put their personal safety at risk.”

Two months after the Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar was shot and killed in a parking lot in suburban Vancouver, Canadian police showed up at the house of a close friend with warning: his life was also in danger.

Two officers – one of them from the federal national security team – handed Gurmeet Singh Toor a document known as a “duty to warn” paper. It required him to confirm that they had told him his life “might be in peril” – and to acknowledge that any attempt on his life might put his family at risk.

“I asked them who might be threatening me and why my life was at risk,” Toor told the Guardian. “They said they couldn’t explain the threats because of ‘security reasons’. But they told me they had information that I was in danger.”

In the aftermath of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s assertion that “agents” of the Indian government were involved in the shooting death of a Sikh leader in British Columbia, my colleagues Norimitsu Onishi and Vjosa Isai looked into growing tensions within the Indian diaspora in Canada, ones that reflect divisions in India that have been fueled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalism.

India has told Canada that it must repatriate 41 diplomats by Oct. 10, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.

Ties between India and Canada have deteriorated in recent weeks after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced there were “credible allegations” of Indian involvement in the assassination of Sikh independence activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

Nijjar, 45, had been wanted by India for years and was gunned down outside a Sikh temple in Surrey, B.C., on June 18.

In light of the recent killing of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, the already strained diplomatic relations between India and Canada – two countries historically connected through trade and culture – have deteriorated further. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last week accused Indian government agents of a role in Nijjar’s murder, a charge New Delhi categorically denied.

Terming Trudeau’s allegations “absurd and politically motivated”, India suspended a Canadian diplomat in a tit-for-tat action and suspended visa services for Canadian citizens. The Indian government also asked Trudeau to provide evidence to back his claim but received none, so far.

Ajit Doval looks nothing like a spy.

Short, balding and bespectacled, the 78-year-old national security adviser to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has none of the James Bond daring you might expect from one of India’s most storied spooks.

For decades, Canada was a safe haven for Sikhs. Many left their native India in the 1980s and ’90s after thousands died there during armed struggles for an independent Sikh state called Khalistan. Nearly 800,000 Sikhs live in Canada today, the largest community outside India.

While the Sikh separatist movement is hardly visible in India anymore, it is still very much alive within the diaspora in Canada. The relationship between India and Canada has been tense for many years because of this.

Canada assassination claim sparks rare consensus in India’s polarised politics and media

When Justin Trudeau stood up in Canadian parliament last week to announce there were “credible allegations” that agents linked to the Indian government had been involved in the assassination of a Sikh activist in a suburb of Vancouver, it sent reverberations across the world.

Countries from the US to the UK expressed concern at the allegations, urging India to cooperate with the investigation. Inside India, the response was defiant. The government called the allegations “absurd” and politically motivated and attempted to turn the tables, accusing Canada of being a rogue state that is a “safe haven for terrorists”.

Months after a pro-Khalistan activist was shot and killed in Surrey, B.C., a second Sikh activist was allegedly warned by law enforcement about threats to his life, according to a newly disclosed document.

The document, titled “duty to warn” is addressed to Gurmit Singh Toor and dated August 24. It was made public by pro-Khalistan activist group Sikhs For Justice.

Speaking through a translator, Toor confirmed to CBC News that Surrey RCMP and the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team (INSET) came to his home and issued the warning. CBC News is working to confirm the veracity of the document with RCMP, but has not yet received a response.