‘Echoes of Litvinenko’ in UK Sikh poisoning
Lawyer working on both cases has called for a full investigation into the sudden death of activist
THE mysterious death of a Sikh activist on British soil has echoes of the Litvinenko poisoning, according to a lawyer involved in both cases.
Michael Polak, a human rights barrister, has written to James Cleverly, the Home Secretary, demanding a full investigation into the sudden death of Avtar Singh Khanda in Birmingham in 2023. His official cause of death was acute myeloid leukaemia (AML), a finding backed by West Midlands Police.
Mr Polak, who worked on the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, the Russian dissident, believes it is “more likely than unlikely” that Khanda, 35, was a victim of foul play. He claims detectives at West Midlands Police, which is in
“special measures” following a series of failings including poor investigations, did not conduct even the most basic inquiries into the case. He added that the young activist may have been exposed to lethal radiation as part of an operation to eliminate “enemies” of the Indian state.
“It is possible we are looking at Litvinenko Part II. There are parallels between it,” Mr Polak said.
Khanda moved to the UK in 2013 and was a prominent supporter of the so-called Khalistan movement to establish a separate homeland for Sikhs.
Narendra Modi, India’s Hindu nationalist leader, regards the campaign as a serious security threat. Shortly before his death, Khanda’s name had appeared on a “hit list” of 20 overseas political activists wanted by Indian security services. He became critically ill days before the assassination of another Sikh political activist in Canada.
The murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in British Columbia caused a major diplomatic crisis after Justin Trudeau, the prime minister, pointed the finger at President Modi. Shortly afterwards, the FBI intercepted a plot to kill another Sikh activist, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun in New York. Questions are now mounting over whether India’s security services could have been behind Khanda’s unexpected death. Until his hospitalisation last June, Khanda had no record of ill health. Just a month before his death, he posted a video on his Facebook account, claiming he and his family were being threatened.
He claimed Indian police had been harassing his mother and sister in Punjab, frog-marching them out of their home for repeated interrogations.
“Now they’re pressuring me,” Khanda added, saying he was getting “call after call from different police stations” in India. Khanda was then identified on Indian media channels as an “enemy of the state”.
A pro-modi Indian TV channel broadcast a sinister warning to Sikh political activists “hiding abroad” that Indian intelligence agents would hunt them down and “take action” against them.
On Saturday June 10 2023, Khanda, who worked as a part-time presenter at a Sikh satellite TV channel, began feeling unwell. Birmingham City Hospital diagnosed Khanda with AML, a type of blood cancer. According to the NHS, the disease has been linked to radiation.
Mr Polak said: “In my opinion, given the timings of everything; given his position in the separatist Sikh community; it’s more likely to have been unnatural than it is to be natural.”
No autopsy was conducted on Khanda’s body, because doctors were satisfied that he had died of AML. The coroner agreed. M Singh, the funeral director appointed by the family, claims that he was initially informed that the body was “in a locked fridge, in a sealed bag, as part of a police investigation.”
“We were speaking to other departments about the possibility of a private post mortem. Then they came back to us saying, ‘actually, sorry, we can’t do this; we don’t want to disclose why; but it’s not a case that we want to touch, because we’ve been told by higher up.’”
West Midlands Police said its investigation concluded “that this was a natural death and not suspicious.” The Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trusts were contacted for comment.
‘Given his position in the separatist Sikh community; it’s more likely to have been unnatural than it is to be natural’