Canadian official accuses Indian minister of orchestrating attacks on Sikhs abroad

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A Canadian official has accused India’s powerful home affairs minister Amit Shah of overseeing violence and threats towards Sikh separatist activists in the North American nation, in the most direct claim against a close ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

David Morrison, Canada’s deputy foreign minister, told a parliamentary committee on Tuesday that he had confirmed Shah’s identity and alleged involvement to The Washington Post. The newspaper reported earlier this month that Shah had greenlighted intelligence missions and attacks in Canada.

“The journalist called me and asked me if it was that person,” Morrison said. “I confirmed it was that person,” he added, without providing evidence.

Morrison’s allegation against Shah, who is seen as Modi’s right-hand man, will further inflame tensions between Canada and India, which have been embroiled in a dispute following the killing of Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Vancouver last year.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said there were “credible allegations” of Indian involvement in Nijjar’s death, provoking uproar in New Delhi.

Trudeau’s national security and intelligence adviser Nathalie Drouin on Tuesday confirmed that she had leaked to the media that India was also linked to the killing of Sikh activist Sukhdool Singh Gill, who was shot in Winnipeg in September 2023.

India’s government has been exposed to multiple accusations of targeting overseas activists campaigning for an independent “Khalistan” in Punjab, a region that split between India and Pakistan during the subcontinent’s partition in 1947.

The US this month charged an Indian government official with directing a foiled plot to murder a Sikh activist overseas, who the Financial Times last year confirmed was Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, general counsel for US-based group Sikhs for Justice.

New Delhi considers such Sikh separatists as terrorists, and has rejected allegations of its involvement in Nijjar’s killing and the attempt on Pannun’s life.

Canada expelled India’s top diplomat in the country and five other officials this month, accusing them of involvement in “criminal activities” linked to Nijjar’s death and saying New Delhi had refused to co-operate with its probes.

India’s home and foreign ministries did not respond to requests for comment.

But the foreign ministry previously labelled Canada’s expulsion of its envoys “baseless targeting” and “completely unacceptable”, and responded by ordering six Canadian diplomats to leave the country, including Ottawa’s deputy high commissioner.

Shah, who is widely seen within India as a skilled political operative and Modi’s feared enforcer, has known the prime minister since the 1980s, when he worked for the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the parent organisation of their governing Bharatiya Janata party.

The pair rose to power in their home state Gujarat, where Modi was chief minister. But their tenure in the state was marred by communal riots in the early 2000s in which more than 1,000 Muslims were killed.

Modi was accused of sanctioning violence, but was later cleared by the country’s Supreme Court.

In 2010, Shah was arrested and charged with murder in connection with extrajudicial killings, which he denied. He was later discharged by India’s top court for a lack of evidence.

Shah has remained one of Modi’s closest advisers, and is seen as having been behind some of the BJP government’s most controversial policies, including the revocation of special autonomous status for Jammu and Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state.