By Swastika Chowdhury
In the act of Nijjar Killing, the Khalistani outfit called ‘Sikhs for Justice’ (SFJ) had threatened to besiege the Indian Consulate in Vancouver, Canada after the resumption of diplomatic ties in New Delhi and Ottawa. After urging the Indo-Canadians to stay away from the premises of the consulate, the separatist outfit announced that it would take down the consulate on Thursday, September, 18.
During the said acts of violence against Indo-Canadians the separatist outfit also released a poster of the Dinish Patnaik, the new Indian high commissioner, with a target on his face.
In the statement released by SFJ, it referred to the then Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s statement in the Canadian Parliament on September, 2023 when he said that the alleged contributions of the Indian agents in reference to the killing of the NIA-designated terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar was undergoing an investigation.
The separatist groups claimed that even after two years of the act of killing the Indian Consulates are still trying to run a secretive spy network and surveillance which targets the Khalistani Referendum campaigners.
It further claimed that the threat was so serious that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) placed Inderjeet Singh Gosal under “witness protection”. He was the one associated with taking over the Khalistani Referendum campaigns after Nijjar’s death.
It was SFJ’s way of demanding some accountability and for what it described as “espionage and intimidation of Canadian soil”, the reason behind the proposed siege of the Indian Consulate in Vancouver. Earlier this year, a Canadian government report called out the presence of terrorist groups in the country.
After an understanding at the G7 Summit in June, between the two Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and his Canadian counterpart Mark Carey, both countries recently pronounced their new high commissioners.
While relations between the two countries have been tense since 2023, Trudeau alleged that his government has “credible allegations” which were linked with Indian agents killing Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
Hardeep Singh Nijjar was shot outside of a gurdwara in Surrey, British Columbia on June 18, 2023. India since then has refuted all of Trudeau’s claims calling them to be “absurd” and motivated and called out his government for not keeping a check on anti-India and extremist organizations surge in his country.