Murder of a Sikh leader: three suspects arrested in Canada | Tensions between India and Canada

According to court filings, Kamalpreet Singh (22), Karanpreet Singh (28) and Karan Brar (22), all residents of Edmonton, Alberta, are charged with first degree murder and conspiracy.

According to sources close to the case, investigators from the Royal Canadian Mounted PoliceRCMP are actively examining the possibility that this killer team is also linked to three other murders committed in Canada, including that of an 11-year-old child (new window) last November in Edmonton.

The suspects, who were identified by Canadian federal police a few months ago, were under close surveillance until their arrest Friday morning.

According to our sources, the individuals arrested held various positions – shooters, drivers, lookouts – on the day Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar, 45, was assassinated at the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in Surrey.

The publication of a video of the assassination (new window) by the broadcast The Fifth Estate revealed a level of preparation and meticulous execution of the operation.

At a press conference Friday afternoon, the police force clarified that the three suspects had been arrested separately in the morning in Edmonton. The three individuals had been on Canadian soil for three to five years.

Their photo will be published shortly and the Royal Canadian Mounted PoliceRCMP invites anyone with information about them to contact them.

This announcement does not, however, constitute a full report of the ongoing investigative work, said the deputy commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted PoliceRCMP in British Columbia, David Teboul.

Separate investigations are currently being conducted into various aspects of the case which are certainly not limited to the involvement of those arrested today, including a review into the involvement of the Government of India.

There Royal Canadian Mounted PoliceRCMP has been working with Indian law enforcement agencies for six to seven years, added the deputy commissioner. I can characterize this relationship as one that is difficult, for several reasons that I cannot elaborate on. However, the Royal Canadian Mounted PoliceRCMP [travaille] to improve this relationship.

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Mr. Teboul would not comment on the nature of the evidence collected or the motives for the murder.

Superintendent Mandeep Mooker, for his part, invited anyone who had contact, during the month of June 2023 in the Surrey region, with one of the people arrested on Friday to transmit the information to the information line of the ‘Integrated Homicide Investigation Team Royal Canadian Mounted PoliceRCMP.

He also said there could be other suspects connected to the case.

Diplomatic coldness

The assassination disrupted diplomatic relations between India and Canada after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told the House of Commons in September that Canadian security services had credible intelligence. (new window) revealing that Mr. Nijjar’s assassination was ordered by the Indian government.

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Prime Minister Trudeau then declared that the assassination of a Canadian citizen in his own country (new window) by a foreign government constituted an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty.

The government of Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, immediately rejected outright and describedabsurd these allegations of extrajudicial executions carried out in Canada.

The Indian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, went further by accusing Canada of harboring violent extremist groups.

Series of murders

On September 20, 2023, barely two days after this appearance in the House by Prime Minister Trudeau, Sukhdool Singh Gill, (new window) an individual actively sought by Indian security services, was found dead, shot several times, in a duplex in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

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The day before his death, Gill was placed by India’s National Investigation Agency on a list of 43 individuals wanted for terrorism. It was alleged that he was linked to the Khalistan Tiger Force (new window)a terrorist group with which Hardeep Singh Nijjar was also associated by the Indian authorities.

Six weeks after the assassination of Sukhdool Singh Gill, on November 9, 2023, another citizen of Sikh origin, Harpreet Uppal, 41, was shot dead in broad daylight in Edmonton with his 11-year-old son (new window) in the parking lot of a busy shopping center while they were in their vehicle.

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According to Edmonton police, the shooters took care to shoot Uppal and his son, while saving the life of another boy – a friend of the child – who was also in the vehicle at the time of the shooting. attack.

A few weeks later, in December, an Indian government employee was charged in the United States (new window) of having taken part in a conspiracy to commit murder on American soil.

Use of criminal networks

According to our sources, the suspects arrested on Friday are all Indian citizens who arrived in Canada after 2021 on temporary visas, some on foreign student visas. None of them obtained permanent residency.

All are believed to be members of a Punjab criminal group associated with gangster notorious Indian Lawrence Bishnoi, currently detained in an Indian prison, according to our information.

Accused of murder of rapper Sidhu Moose Wala (new window)a citizen of Brampton, Ontario killed in India in 2022, Bishnoi is also believed to be active in drug trafficking and extortion.

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According to the World Sikh Organization of Canada (WSOC), Moose Wala had begun speaking publicly about Khalistan and the discrimination faced by Sikhs in India before his assassination.

As for Lawrence Bishnoi, he recently appeared in Indian media, declaring himself an Indian nationalist and opposing those who support Khalistanwrites theWorld Sikh Organization of CanadaOMSC in a press release.

Several criminal groups in India reportedly have branches in Canada, where they extort money from traders or individuals through local criminal groups.

However, according to an American indictment and Canadian investigators, the Indian government used one of these criminal networks to eliminate its political enemies in Canada.

During the press conference on Friday, the deputy commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted PoliceRCMP Brian Edwards highlighted the important role played by the local community, particularly the Sikh community, in the investigation which led to the three arrests earlier in the day.

The message, ultimately, is this: our community is very strong. She will not be intimidated and the community will work with the police to hold offenders accountablehe insisted.

At a press briefing late in the afternoon, the Canadian Minister of Public Safety, Dominic LeBlanc, welcomed the announcement of the Royal Canadian Mounted PoliceRCMPwho is the fruit of several months of work by the integrated homicide investigation team of the Royal Canadian Mounted PoliceRCMPwhich benefited from the support of the Federal Police program in the Pacific Region, [département] from Surrey Royal Canadian Mounted PoliceRCMP and other partner organizations.

These arrests constitute an important step forward in the efforts deployed by the Royal Canadian Mounted PoliceRCMP to hold those responsible for Mr. Nijjar’s murder accountable for their actions through our independent justice systemhe added.

Radio-Canada/CBC has undertaken not to disclose the identity of its sources due to the delicate nature of this matter and the risks related to their personal security.

With information from CBC News and Benoît Ferradini