Drive-by shootings, arson and murder: is the Indian government trying to silence Canada’s Sikh activists?

On one summer night in Ontario, a Canadian Sikh activist received a panicked call from his wife: police had come to the family home and warned her that his life was at risk.

Two weeks later and thousands of kilometers away, a gunman in the province of British Columbia filmed himself firing a volley of bullets into the home of a prominent Indo-Canadian singer as two vehicles burned in the driveway.

Both instances – together with a string of arsons, extortion schemes, drive-by shootings and at least two murders – are now believed to be part of a wide-ranging and violent campaign of intimidation across Canada orchestrated by India’s government.

Last September, the prime minister, Justin Trudeau, suggested there were “credible allegations potentially linking” Indian officials with the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Canadian citizen and Sikh activist, who was shot dead in British Columbia.

Until recently, the scope and depth of those allegations were not clear. This week, however, Canadian police made the explosive accusation that Indian diplomats had worked with a criminal network led by a notorious imprisoned gangster to target Sikh dissidents in the country.

India rejected the allegations as “strange” and “ludicrous”.

But Canadian officials point to a string of cases over the past few years they suspect are part of a broader, India-sanctioned campaign to intimidate, coerce and kill.

In September 2023, only two days after Trudeau’s initial suggestion of a link to the Indian government, a fugitive Indian gangster called Sukhdool Singh Gill was killed in a hail of gunfire in a Winnipeg home.

Gill, a member of the Bambiha gang, was wanted in India on charges of extortion, attempted murder and murder. But Indian officials also said he was also linked to the separatist Khalistan movement, which aspires to establish a Sikh homeland in Punjab.

Inderjeet Brar, who lived nearby, says he and his wife heard nearly a dozen shots fired that morning and footage from a security camera facing his backyard captured three men fleeing Gill’s house.

A year later, police on Vancouver Island were called to the house of AP Dhillon, a prominent singer and producer who was born in Punjab and grew up Canada. The building had been peppered with gunfire, and two vehicles were charred ruins.

Footage of the attack – apparently filmed by one of the assailants – was later posted online and shared widely in India. The British Columbia public safety minister called the attack “absolutely outrageous”.

Both attacks were claimed by members of a notorious gang run by India’s most feared crime boss, Lawrence Bishnoi, whose network has been linked to some of the most high-profile crimes in the country – despite the fact that Bishnoi has been imprisoned since 2014.

Canadian police say the government of Narendra Modi has been using organized crime syndicates such as the Bishnoi gang, as part of its strategy to pursue opponents and rivals.

“There can be overlapping motivations to target certain people or groups,” said Harjeet Singh Grewal, an assistant professor of Sikh studies at the University of Calgary. “And I think that’s what we’re seeing right now: overlapping interests for both the gangs – who might want to settle scores and gain an ‘economic benefit’ – and [the Indian government, which is] targeting activists.”

In the case of Dhillon, whose stardom spans multiple countries, a recent decision to feature Bollywood star Salman Khan in a music video apparently angered Bishnoi, who has pledged to kill the actor over a longstanding feud.

Grewal says Dhillon also lent his support to Punjabi farmers during their months-long protest in 2021, with Indian media suggesting his song Farmer spread “pro-Khalistan” messages that angered the Modi government.

“There’s a deep tradition in Punjabi music and lyrics that speak to the powers that be about disenfranchisement,” said Grewal. “Some of these artists [in India] who spread these messages are now dead – and their deaths are connected to crime syndicates.”

A 2022 report from Canada’s intelligence agency flagged a growing concern over organized crime, warning gangs with entrenched operations represented a “significant” public safety and societal threat.

“Their structure and membership are increasingly fluid, often creating opportunistic criminal relationships with national and international networks and associates,” the report said.

Trudeau made an explicit connection between Bishnoi and the Indian government during his testimony at a commission investigating foreign interference this week.

But for those living close to the violence, links between the Indian government and organized crime doesn’t come as a surprise.

“I think there’s a way in which Modi helps the Bishnoi gang and the Bishnoi gang helps Modi,” said Brar. “If Bishnoi is giving interviews and overseeing his gang from a jail cell, it means the government is likely involved in some way. Otherwise, how could he do this?”

Brar turned his video footage over to the police, but now worries his family could face recriminations when they visit India.

“We’re just trying to go about our lives and yet we worry if we too will pay some cost for speaking up,” he said.

India has long accused the Canadian government for being soft on supporters of the Khalistan movement, which is banned in India but is more prevalent among the diaspora in Canada. New Delhi has argued that Canada has for decades failed to confront what it says are Sikh militants and failed to extradite gang members for prosecution at home.

But experts say that India’s rapid rise from developing nation to global superpower has also come with a growing sense it can act with relative impunity – both domestically and outside its borders.

Earlier this year, the increasingly pugnacious Indian prime minister made an extraordinary public boast that he was able to extract retribution for dissent, saying: “Today, even India’s enemies know: this is Modi, this is the New India. This New India comes into your home to kill you.”

In the case of its covert Canada operation, agents working out of India’s high commission in Ottawa and consulates in Vancouver and Toronto are alleged to have used a mix of diplomatic pressure and coercion to compel Indians living in Canada to spy on the Sikh community.

Canadian officials have long known of India’s efforts to threaten and coerce diaspora population. And given Delhi’s mounting frustration with Ottawa’s refusal to crack down on pro-Khalistan groups, officials suspected vocal figures like Nijjar were targets for intimidation.

“People in the Sikh community, who have lived experiences of violence and intimidation in the Punjab, are aware of these patterns and can read and understand them quickly,” said Grewal. “More quickly, perhaps, than our law enforcement and intelligence officers.”

This week Trudeau said his government acted “to disrupt the chain of operations that go from Indian diplomats here in Canada to criminal organizations, to direct violent impacts on Canadians right across this country”.

Canadian police have arrested at least eight people, including three believed to have killed Nijjar, in connection with homicide cases and nearly two dozen in connection with extortion investigations.

On Friday, Mélanie Joly, Canada’s foreign minister, warned the country would “not sit quietly as agents of any country are linked to efforts to threaten, harass or even to kill Canadians”.

RCMP commissioner Mike Duheme said police had uncovered “well over a dozen credible and imminent threats to life” leading police to issue “duty to warn” notices, including to the brother-in-law of New Democratic party leader Jagmeet Singh.

The Guardian has spoken with four people who have received such warnings, all of whom describe tightlipped police operating on “credible” evidence of possible attempts on their lives.

Inderjeet Singh Gosal, a close friend of Nijjar, received a panicked call form his wife while he was traveling: police were at their house, with a message that his life was in danger.

Gosal, who took over efforts to hold a global, non-binding referendum as part of an effort to create the Sikh homeland of Khalistan after his “brother” Nijjar was killed last year, says there is little doubt India is behind the threats.

“When I stepped into this role and over this activism, I knew there was a moment when they’d come after me,” he said. “It’s never going to stop. But this is what I signed up for. I’m not afraid of death at all.”

Months earlier, a property owned by Gosal was struck with a bullet, which he took as a warning sign.

When US prosecutors revealed on Thursday that they had charged a former Indian intelligence officer for co-ordinating a foiled murder-for-hire plot targeting a prominent Sikh activist in New York, the unsealed indictment laid out in black and white the extent to which Indian officials were allegedly involved in the scheme.

“But for Sikhs here, we know what India is capable of: we’ve seen it for years,” said Gosal. “We have no illusions. We know they have vast resources and no mercy.”