On November 3, violence broke out at the Hindu Sabha Mandir, a temple in Brampton, Ontario. Videos posted online show some people carrying distinctive yellow flags of Khalistan—a movement which demands a separate Sikh homeland to be carved out of India—clashing with others holding Indian flags. The tensions between members of the congregation and Khalistan-supporting Sikhs protesting the presence of Indian consular officials there resulted in more clashes, five arrests, and the suspensions of a Peel police officer and a Hindu priest. India’s external affairs ministry says “extremists and separatists” were behind the violence, while the North America–based group Sikhs for Justice describes the incident as an “unprovoked violent attack on peaceful pro-Khalistan demonstrators.”
Soon after the incident, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau wrote on X that the violence was “unacceptable” and that “every Canadian has the right to practice their faith freely and safely.” A day later, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi escalated matters. On X, he condemned the “deliberate attack” on the Hindu temple, in effect blaming Sikh activists for the violent clash. He also denounced “cowardly attempts to intimidate” consular staff, adding, “Such acts of violence will never weaken India’s resolve.”
Modi’s sharp words were not surprising given what has gone down between India and Canada since September last year. That was when Trudeau told Parliament that Canada was “actively pursuing credible allegations” linking Indian government agents to the killing of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar outside a Sikh temple in Surrey, a Vancouver suburb with a large Sikh population, three months prior.
Then, last November, the United States Department of Justice unsealed an indictment in a New York court against an Indian citizen, Nikhil Gupta, accusing him of plotting to kill at least four Sikh separatists in North America, including Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, an associate of Nijjar’s, in New York. Gupta, who was arrested in Prague, was allegedly recruited by an Indian intelligence agent in May 2023. He was extradited to the United States this past June and has pleaded not guilty to charges arising from the alleged plot that failed.
As the investigations continued, the two North American countries garnered more evidence of Indian involvement. India’s possible link to another murder of a Sikh in Canada, three days after Trudeau’s statement in Parliament in September last year, is now being probed. The Indian government is co-operating with the Biden administration in the probe into the foiled plot but has vehemently rebutted the charges made by Canada.
On October 14 this year, in two separate pressers—one by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the other by Trudeau—Canada claimed that the Indian government and its intelligence agencies had colluded with an Indian gangster, with the help of the country’s top diplomats in Canada, to get Nijjar murdered. In a statement, the Indian government said it “strongly rejects these preposterous imputations and ascribes them to the political agenda of the Trudeau Government that is centered around vote bank politics.” Both countries expelled six of each other’s top envoys.
The violence at the Brampton temple, prompting sharp remarks by Modi, is the latest instance of worsening ties between India and Canada against the backdrop of a case that has snowballed into a major diplomatic crisis. The political and strategic implications for India can be grave after the name of the prime minister’s closest aide, Amit Shah, figured in the allegations made by Canadian officials over the targeting of Sikhs in the country. The alleged involvement of Lawrence Bishnoi, a gangster housed in a high-security Indian prison, renders a sinister edge to a rather inept operation—one said to have been handled by a low-level former official in India’s external intelligence agency.
The whole episode may have won the approval of Modi’s supporters, who feel it shows India’s strength in targeting its enemies abroad, but it is one that India is likely to pay a heavy price for.
The last of the story is yet to be heard, but the roles of three people stand out in this international saga of conspiracy, spies, and crime.
The first among them is Lawrence Bishnoi, name-checked by Trudeau as the head of the gang that was allegedly used by Indian intelligence officials to kill Nijjar in Surrey. The thirty-one-year-old from India’s Sikh-majority state of Punjab has chalked up criminal acts in the country and abroad even as he has been behind bars, across at least seven Indian jails, since 2014.
A number of recent cases show Bishnoi’s clout. He has a feud with Bollywood superstar Salman Khan and has earned praise from Hindu fundamentalists for threatening him. In March last year, a news channel aired two interviews with Bishnoi—conducted while he was in police custody. Days before Trudeau named him this past October, Bishnoi’s gang had claimed the assassination of Baba Siddique, a politician and realtor based in Mumbai. Bishnoi resides in the high-security Sabarmati prison in Modi’s home state of Gujarat. In September last year, the Indian home ministry, under the control of Shah, recommended that Bishnoi not be transferred out of Sabarmati, even for interrogation—an unusual dispensation that has now been extended by another year.
Equally fascinating is Vikash Yadav, a field officer who served in the Research and Analysis Wing—R&AW, India’s external intelligence agency—for around ten years, though the Indian government has said he is no longer in its employment. The US Department of Justice has alleged that, around June last year, Yadav provided Gupta with the personal information for Pannun—who worked alongside Nijjar—and helped him arrange an advance cash payment for the assassination. He faces charges of murder for hire and conspiracy to commit money laundering, as does Gupta.
Yadav had tried hard for nine years but was finally accepted as a full-time official in R&AW just two months after US officials informed their Indian counterparts last October about the foiled assassination plot in New York. He is now on the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s wanted list, and a US federal warrant for his arrest was issued on October 10 this year, around the time Canadian officials claim to have shared evidence with New Delhi about India’s involvement in the targeting of Sikhs in Canada. This was done at a meeting with Modi’s national security adviser, Ajit Doval, in Singapore on October 12.
Canada made three proposals: India could waive diplomatic immunity for the RCMP to question the six diplomats; Ottawa could expel them; or India could accept an off-ramp. The off-ramp proposed was that India withdraw its six diplomats, expand its US investigation to Canada, both countries set up a committee to work together to end foreign interference, and that New Delhi direct Bishnoi to order his associates in Canada to cease and desist. Nathalie Drouin, Trudeau’s NSA, said Canada decided to go public as the Indian government chose not to co-operate on the proposed measures.
Interestingly, last year, Yadav was sent back to the Central Reserve Police Force, from where he had come to the R&AW, for violating an internal order. Later, he was dismissed from service by the CRPF, not over the charge of abetting a crime in New York but for a weak case of extortion, and was arrested last December. Yadav spent four months in a prison in New Delhi and was released in April. Even though his career seems over, some believe the flimsy case of extortion, as it makes its way through India’s byzantine legal process, will be used to delay and deny his extradition to the US.
Yadav is a lowly official in India’s government hierarchy, but the man who allegedly passed the orders for the killings of the Sikh separatists in North America is the most powerful person in India after Modi. Amit Shah, India’s home minister, was christened by the Guardian as the prime minister’s “confidant, consigliere and enforcer.” He has been behind bars in the past, before Modi’s ascent to national power, in the case of an extrajudicial killing when he was a minister in Gujarat during Modi’s reign as chief minister of the state.
Shah’s involvement in the targeting of Sikhs in North America has been whispered for a while. Journalists in Canada had been asking Canadian officials, including foreign minister Melanie Joly, about Shah’s involvement but did not receive confirmation. His name was eventually flashed out after a governmental briefing to the Washington Post in October. Subsequently, Canadian deputy foreign minister David Morrison testified before a parliamentary committee in Ottawa that his government believes Shah was involved in directing a campaign of violent attacks, including murders, against Canadian Sikhs.
Shah’s name is the most critical one to come up, because it draws a direct connection to the highest levels of the Indian government. A complex operation involving diplomats, intelligence officials, bureaucrats, and criminal gangs would have needed a high degree of coordination and control. It could have happened only with the approval of a high-level political authority in the Indian system. The connection with Shah’s home state of Gujarat, where Bishnoi is housed safely in a high-security prison, further raises suspicions. Media reports in India suggest that Shah doesn’t care about Western sanctions, as he has not travelled outside the country since Modi became prime minister in 2014. He has no desire to do so in future. “Ask him and he will say that he has no votes to seek abroad,” noted a pro-Modi journalist.
The operation against the Sikh separatists in North America seems driven by a number of factors: the desire to punish the Sikh-dominated farmers movement, which successfully forced Modi to withdraw three new farm laws a few years ago; the majoritarian Hindutva ideology’s discomfort with the idea of a distinct Sikh religion that is not a sect of Hinduism; and the lingering aftereffects of Doval’s experience as a spy in countering Sikh separatists during the violent phase of the Khalistan movement in Punjab in the 1980s.
However, the juvenile nature of the intelligence operation, with no viable strategic aim, reflects badly on Shah—someone who is among the contenders to succeed Modi as party leader. Shah’s understanding of the world beyond India seems rather limited and that of the West’s capabilities inexplicably poor. In any case, the Khalistan movement has been dead in India for many years, and the alleged attempt to eliminate Sikh separatists would have achieved little of value.
RCMP chief Mike Duheme has made it clear that the allegation against Shah is not just based on intelligence but solid evidence that has been collected through the monitoring of digital communications among Indian officials. This level of intelligence could have come only from the United States, a Five Eyes partner of Canada. It means that future indictments in the New York court could also possibly name Shah, further besmirching India by placing it in the same league as Vladimir Putin’s Russia, Mohammed bin Salman’s Saudi Arabia, and Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israel. When a minor intelligence agent is named, a lot can be brushed under the carpet. But when the closest associate of the prime minister is called out, the consequences are far graver.
Senior Indian ministers being perceived as reckless and rogue undermines India’s reputation as a responsible global power. Shah could be sanctioned—in a first for any serving Indian minister—and an Interpol notice could be issued against him. The case could become a lightning rod in global human rights forums and multilateral organizations. Embarrassment aside, it could give India’s adversaries an easy tool to target New Delhi with and give its friends and partners an issue they can deploy to compel India to stay in line on critical matters. The Indian government would need to spend diplomatic resources and political energy countering them.
Modi and Shah’s rabid domestic support base may deem the whole episode a sign of the power of “New India.” During the campaign for India’s parliamentary polls earlier this year, these leaders boasted of striking the country’s enemies inside their homes. A charitable view of these claims could be that they were made in the heat of electioneering and referred only to Pakistan, but another indictment by the US will ensure that these boastful speeches will return to haunt New Delhi.
The charges levelled by Canada and the US against India are similar. Going by the US Department of Justice filing, a direct link exists between Nijjar’s murder and the plot to kill Pannun. However, India has tried to drive a wedge between the allegations by the two countries. New Delhi has demonstrated co-operation with the United States while attacking Canada. Senior Indian editors ingenuously argue that the reason behind the different approaches is that “Trudeau did politics, America hard diplomacy.”
Attempting to draw a distinction between the US and Canadian cases, external affairs minister S. Jaishankar said the US, unlike Canada, “doesn’t justify separatism, terrorism and extremism in the name of freedom of speech.” His ministry further claimed that the social media pages of The Australia Today were blocked in Canada hours after it covered Jaishankar’s meeting with his Australian counterpart, and that this belied Ottawa’s commitment to freedom of speech. It turned out that the news outlet is just one among many others, including Canadian ones, whose pages on Meta platforms are not visible in Canada due to the social media giant’s disagreement with Canadian legislation.
Further, Jaishankar’s claim that while “the US shared specific inputs, Canada didn’t” is challenged by media reports and interviews with officials which suggest that senior Canadian officials presented evidence to Doval at the meeting in Singapore on October 12 but Doval rejected the offer. Indian journalists, seen to be close to the current security establishment, reported on the meeting despite an agreement between the officials of the two countries that it would be kept under wraps. The Canadians then decided to go public, piling on more embarrassing details about New Delhi in the public domain.
It can’t be purely coincidental that the fresh indictment by the US Department of Justice and statements from US officials about an Indian enquiry committee visiting Washington, DC, came around the same time. “Yadav was employed by the Government of India’s Cabinet Secretariat, which is a part of the Indian Prime Minister’s Office. RAW is an arm of the Cabinet Secretariat,” noted the DoJ’s list of charges, drawing Modi’s office into the plot.
Eric Garcetti, the American ambassador to India, said things that were much harsher than anything Canada has said: “This sort of behaviour is unacceptable. . . . Certainly, unacceptable to us as Americans. That’s a red line . . . no matter who they are or what they say. . . . But ultimately, I think, people in Washington will only be satisfied when accountability is achieved.” Some Indian commentators contend that “the big picture emerging from the Nijjar–Pannun affair is that the West is wary of the rise of India as an economic and military powerhouse. Like China, it would prefer India to remain a regional power.”
Besides Shah, there may be others who are at risk of future revelations. Doval did not accompany Modi on a foreign trip this past September (when Modi went to the US for the Quad summit)—in a first since he became Modi’s NSA in 2014. No official reason was proffered, but the decision seemed prompted by a court case filed by Sikh separatists, naming Doval and Samant Goel, R&AW chief at the time of the alleged transnational operations, in a US court. A couple of days before Modi landed in New York, US officials also publicly met Sikh leaders, the first such meeting on record.
The Trudeau government has publicly stated that it has put other Indian diplomats in Canada on notice. Many officials in the Indian system are likely to be wary of being caught in this whirlpool. They would not have been reassured by the manner in which the Indian government has seemingly thrown Yadav under the bus, even though it looks like it is trying its best to prevent his extradition to the US to protect those above him in the hierarchy. India may further succumb to US pressure, and this will have a direct effect on the morale of Indian intelligence officials, who work in grey zones in covert operations. The damage, in fact, may already have been done.
Despite the strong rhetoric from Trudeau and his officials, Ottawa has not imposed sanctions on Indian intelligence agencies or ended its intelligence sharing agreement with India, signed in 2018. New Delhi could mistake this as a sign of Canada’s weakness and decide to wait to change its policy toward Ottawa until Trudeau is possibly voted out in the next federal election. But regardless of whether Trudeau remains prime minister, states have deep institutional memories which transcend the parties and leaders in power. Even if diplomatic ties between India and Canada are restored in a post-Trudeau era, intelligence sharing and co-operation on other sensitive issues between the two countries will continue to lag far behind.
New Delhi may be pleased that the statements of support for Canada from the other Five Eyes countries—the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand—have been mild. But Australia has had its own trouble with Indian intelligence officials, ordering a couple of them out of the country. Sikh separatists have felt threatened there, as has been the case in the UK. The skepticism with which these governments will look at intelligence co-operation with New Delhi will have consequences for India. It could end up leaving India less safe and secure, whether with respect to the designs of terror groups or threats from conventional adversaries like China and Pakistan.
For a country that desires to be treated by the West as a strategic partner, India may soon realize that the West’s emphasis on a rules-based order can be used as an argument against New Delhi. Modi and his ministers are trying to brazen out this unsavoury episode, but the enthrallment of their domestic support base notwithstanding, India will pay a price in the long run.
