Signs posted on the gates of a Sikh temple in the shadow of Toronto’s Pearson Airport declared it a “referendum war zone.”
But inside the gurdwara’s perimeter on Sunday afternoon, the atmosphere was festive. Drums beat and children played as hundreds of people formed a long snaking line toward the temple doors.
They were waiting to cast ballots on a provocative question: Do you want the Indian state of Punjab to become an independent country called Khalistan?
On a mid-June summer evening in the busy parking lot of the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in the city of Surrey, Hardeep Singh Nijjar was shot dead in his truck by two masked gunmen.
A month later, the unsolved killing continues to reverberate, in Canada and across borders. Hundreds of Sikh separatists took to the streets in Toronto, along with a handful others in cities like London, Melbourne and San Francisco, just last weekend to protest the Indian government, which they believe is responsible for his death.
Rallies in support of the Khalistan Freedom movement are being planned for Saturday, July 8 at India’s consulates in Toronto and Vancouver in the wake of the killing of prominent Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
Mr. Nijjar was shot dead in the parking lot of the Surrey, B.C. gurdwara where he was president on June 18. Mr. Nijjar, whom India’s National Investigation Agency had accused of being a terrorist, advocated for Sikh independence and urged Sikhs around the world to vote in an international referendum for Punjab, a state in northern India, to secede.
On Tuesday, July 4, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada, Mélanie Joly took cognizance of the Khalistanis threatening Indian diplomats in posters circulated in Canada and said that it is unacceptable. She said that the country takes its obligations under the Vienna Conventions regarding safety of diplomats very seriously.
Members of the Sikh community in Surrey believe that Hardeep Singh Nijjar, the president of a local temple, was killed because of his political views.
On Sunday, after riddling a car with bullets in a parking lot, two masked, heavyset men made a run for it and jumped into a getaway vehicle near a Sikh temple in Surrey, British Columbia, the police said.
The victim, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, 45, was a prominent Sikh community leader and president of the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara, a temple where he was shot. He advocated the creation of Khalistan, an independent Sikh nation carved out of areas including the Indian state of Punjab.
The president of a Sikh temple in Surrey, B.C., who had been warned by Canada’s spy agency that he was in danger, was shot and killed on the gurdwara grounds on Sunday, prompting a new flare-up of old tensions that have simmered since the Air India bombing 38 years ago.
At a news conference Monday, RCMP confirmed Hardeep Singh Nijjar was found in a truck outside the Guru Nanak Gurdwara suffering gunshot wounds. He died at the scene.
The president of the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in Surrey, B.C., was shot dead Sunday night in the temple’s parking lot, according to members of the province’s Sikh community.
Hardeep Singh Nijjar’s death was confirmed by the temple’s vice-president and Sikh community groups, and he is being mourned widely on social media.
… The vice-president of the gurdwara, Amandeep Singh Johal, told CBC News that Nijjar, 45, was an activist with the Sikh independence group Sikhs for Justice.
In 2016, CBC News reported that the government of India was seeking Nijjar’s extradition from Canada on charges related to extremism.
India behind this? I would not be surprised given Junior’s select tolerance for extremism.
More … Hardeep Singh Nijjar: Khalistani leader shot dead inside gurdwara in Canada
h/t DM
OTTAWA — India’s foreign minister is condemning images of a parade said to have occurred in Brampton, Ont., which seemed to portray the 1984 assassination of prime minister Indira Gandhi by her two Sikh bodyguards.
Mosque officials call on Ford government to combat Islamophobia after ‘shocking’ hate-motivated attack in Markham, Ont.
The Mohammedans are asking Ford to protect them from the spillover into Ontario of the interfaith Hindu-Muslim conflict currently roiling India.
We also have the India-Khalistan conflict to contend with on our shores, several Hindu temples have been vandalized recently.
And the anti-Israel Jihad is now mainstream in “polite circles.”
And don’t forget the problems with our Communist China sympathizers.
Ain’t multiculturalism grand?
Canada has been reduced to a balkanized state of multiple 5th Columns.
Thank the Uniparty.
India on Thursday strongly condemned another act of hate-motivated vandalism at a Hindu temple in Windsor, a city in Canada’s Ontario, saying that the issue has been taken up with the Justin Trudeau government and it is time for taking action instead of making assurances.
Despite exhortation from India to act, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has failed to take action against a new wave of Khalistani activism in Canada.
Here is why.
Trudeau heads a minority government which is backed by the New Democratic Party (NDP), headed by Jagmeet Singh, an arch-Khalistani separatist.
MUMBAI, March 26 (Reuters) – India summoned Canada’s High Commissioner on Sunday to “convey strong concern” over Sikh protesters in Canada and how they were allowed to breach the security of India’s diplomatic mission and consulates.
According to Canadian media reports, hundreds of protesters gathered in front of the Indian consulate in Vancouver on Saturday over demands for an independent Sikh state, a simmering issue for decades recently triggered again.
From CBC – treated as “local news.”
Hundreds gather in Vancouver to protest crackdown in India’s Sikh-majority state
We are a nation of Fifth Columns.
Multiple Hindu temples have been vandalized in Australia and Canada, actions that have been attributed to members of the pro-Khalistan movement.
In the span of two weeks, three Hindu temples were vandalized in Australia – on January 12 at the Swaminarayan temple in Melbourne, January 16 at the historic Shri Shiva Vishnu Temple in Victoria, and on January 23 at the ISKCON Temple in Melbourne.
Breaking: Temple vandalised in #Canada by Khalistanis‼️
Gauri Shankar Mandir, a prominent Hindu temple in Canada, defaced with anti-India graffiti in Canada. It is suspected that the the temple was defaced by terror organisation Sikhs For Justice (#SFJ) and other Khalistani group pic.twitter.com/t62ruvmgGk— kakalibran (@kakalibran) January 31, 2023
Ottawa can help repair frosty relations with New Delhi by cracking down on diasporic funding of the Sikh independence movement that is seeking to create a sovereign homeland known as Khalistan, India’s new envoy to Canada says.
Sanjay Kumar Verma told The Globe and Mail that India has long been concerned that some segments of the Sikh community in Canada are offering support and money to secessionists who want to separate Punjab from India. Punjab is an Indian state where the Sikh religion is the majority.
