The man who replaced Hardeep Singh Nijjar as leader of the Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) group in Canada says he rejected an offer of protection from the Canadian government that would have forced him to “disappear” from his life.
Inderjeet Singh Gosal of Brampton, Ontario, is considered a prime assassination target by the same forces who already shot and killed his predecessor in the parking lot of the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in Surrey, BC.
Gosal says he has no plans to keep a low profile and will be in the country’s capital for an SFJ-organized referendum on Punjabi independence from India next month, an event sure to infuriate the Modi government.
Canada has already publicly accused Indian government agents of ordering that murder. Court documents filed this week by U.S. prosecutors in federal district court also link him directly to an agent of India’s foreign intelligence agency.
CBC News spoke with Gosal, who is out on bail after being arrested last month. on a dozen firearms charges, including careless use and unlawful possession of a prohibited weapon.
The active threats against Gosal raise questions about the Carney government’s decision to move towards normalizing relations with India.
An unprecedented warning
India’s alleged activities were enough for the RCMP to go public on October 14, 2024, warning of “an extraordinary situation” uncovered through “multiple ongoing investigations into the involvement of Government of India agents in serious criminal activities in Canada.”
They said they were taking this unusual step “because of the significant threat to public safety in our country.”
Since the diplomatic rift between India and Canada, which led to the expulsion of diplomats by both sides, the RCMP has continued to warn of direct threats to individual members of the Sikh community in Canada.
No one is more exposed than Toronto-born Inderjeet Singh Gosal, who was the target of a drive-by shooting at a workplace last year.
“I’d rather take the bullet from India”
Gosal says that starting in August, RCMP warnings began to increase in frequency and urgency.
“Between August 20 and September 10, the RCMP visited me about eight or ten times. Things got really serious after September 8, when they visited me and said ‘there are hitmen in the city, the shooters are in the city.'”
He said the RCMP told him the only way to protect him was to put him under witness protection and take him to a safe house.
“I respectfully refused, because I would rather take the bullet from India than stop campaigning for the Khalistan referendum.”
CBC News asked Gosal about the firearms charges against him.
“As the matter is before the courts, I can’t really make a statement on it,” he said. “But what I want to focus on is what happened before these charges, the eight to ten visits from the RCMP telling me the hitmen are here and they’re ready to get me.”
CBC News asked the RCMP for comment on the protections offered to Gosal and has not yet received a response.
I’m not ready to disappear
The leader of the global Sikh referendum movement is American-Canadian citizen Gurpatwant Singh Pannun. Last year he was the victim of an alleged murder plot in New York City, where he lives. On November 3, Indian national Nikhil Gupta will stand trial in New York on charges of conspiracy to murder for hire in connection with that plot.
This week, the US prosecutor handling the case filed a motion revealing that his office will seek to present video and wiretap evidence that allegedly links the failed Pannun plot and the Nijjar murder in Surrey, British Columbia, in 2023, and that also links both directly to the Government of India.
Hardeep Singh Nijjar was a pro-Khalistan activist and president of a Sikh temple in Surrey, BC. His day job was as a plumber. For years, the Indian government called him a terrorist, a claim Nijjar repeatedly denied. So who was Nijjar and why did India think he posed such a danger?
Pannun says the witness protection offer was never a real option for his Canadian deputy Gosal.
“Ask him to give up his life of 33 years and disappear from the face of Canada because we can’t protect him?” Pannun said. “He is not a witness in a cartel gang war. He is not a witness in a matter where the opposing gang is going to kill him, whether in jail or outside. This is an individual who is leading a peaceful and democratic referendum campaign.”
Pannun said Gosal had to choose between a form of protection he could not accept or being left defenseless, and that the charges of being armed should be seen in that context.
An upcoming event that is sure to anger India
Gosal was in Parliament on Thursday for a protest in which members of the Khalistani movement called on Canada to stop rapprochement with India until there is evidence that India is willing to suspend what it sees as a campaign of violence, intimidation and murder in Canada.
An influx of Indian diplomats under the current circumstances would only increase the already high risks it faces, he said.
But Gosal said he would not stay out of sight. He promised to return to Ottawa for the final installment of the Sikh referendum on November 23. Pannun said he also hopes to be in Ottawa that day and is weighing that decision against related safety issues.
In the past, India has reacted angrily to Sikh Justice votes, which have been held in several cities with Sikh diaspora communities, from London, Rome and Geneva to Surrey and San Francisco, and have sometimes attracted tens of thousands of voters.
Pannun said the terrorist listing of the Bishnoi gang, which allegedly provided the hit squad used to assassinate Nijjar, is a distraction from the broader question of who directed the assassination.
The Bishnois “only foot soldiers”
India’s new High Commissioner to Canada, Dinesh Patnaik, presented his credentials last month, ending a period in which both countries had reduced their diplomatic presence to lower-ranking officials.
Canadian officials, including Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand and national security adviser Nathalie Drouin, have been in talks with their Indian counterparts about the campaign of widespread violence reported by the RCMP last year. Anand, who will travel to India on Sunday, told CBC rosemary barton live that Canada will take a “step-by-step approach” to restoring ties.
“We will have a conversation when I am in India about what the next steps are in the diplomatic relationship,” he told host Rosemary Barton.
Anand said Indian officials are cooperating more with Canadian authorities.
“[India] “I think we’ve found a way, as I said, to address mutual concerns and for leaders to be able to talk about the business relationship.”
Pannun says the escalation of threats to his deputy in Brampton and the RCMP’s continued issuance of “duty to warn” letters undermine those claims.
“We want Anita Anand to take the evidence of the US Department of Justice, which has always denied any involvement, to India and ask questions and seek an answer,” he said.
“How can you normalize with a regime that is actively pursuing assassination plots? This normalization with Prime Minister Carney’s India is going to fail.”
Gosal told CBC News that Canada was too keen to put the diplomatic dispute behind it.
“We want External Affairs Minister Anita Anand to confront India, not cooperate,” he said.
