Police make arrests in killing of B.C. Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar

Canadian police have ar‐ rested members of an al‐ leged hit squad investiga‐ tors believe was tasked by the government of India with killing prominent Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, B.C., last June, CBC News has learned.

Sources close to the inves‐ tigation also told CBC News that police are actively inves‐ tigating possible links to three additional murders in Canada, including the shoot‐ ing death of an 11-year-old boy in Edmonton.

Members of the hit squad are alleged to have played different roles as shooters, drivers and spotters on the day Nijjar was killed at the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in Surrey, according to the sources.

Sources said investigators identified the alleged hit squad members in Canada some months ago and have been keeping them under tight surveillance.

Kamalpreet Singh, Karan‐ preet Singh and Karan Brar face first-degree murder and conspiracy charges in the Nij‐ jar case, according to docu‐ ments filed in a Surrey court Friday. The charges have not been tested in court, but they all appeared before a judge virtually on Friday.

Although sources initially told CBC News that raids were expected in at least two provinces, RCMP confirmed Friday that all three men were arrested separately in Edmonton without incident two of them in their homes and another elsewhere.

'This investigation does not end here,' says RCMP officer

All of the accused are Indian citizens and have been nonpermanent residents of Canada for three to five years, RCMP officers told re‐ porters at their Friday press conference announcing the charges.

Sources told CBC News the men arrived in Canada on temporary visas after 2021, some of them student visas. None are believed to have pursued education while in Canada. None have obtained permanent resi‐ dency.

Others tied to this crime could be arrested in the com‐ ing days, police said.

"This investigation does not end here. We are aware that others may have played a role in this homicide and we remain dedicated to find‐ ing and arresting each one of these individuals," said Supt. Mandeep Mooker, the officer in charge of the B.C. RCMP's Integrated Homicide Investi‐ gation Team (IHIT).

Assistant Commissioner David Teboul, the RCMP com‐ mander for the Pacific region, said he wouldn't comment on the alleged links between these men and Indian offi‐ cials.

He did say the force is "in‐ vestigating connections to the government of India."

But Teboul said the force's relationship with Indian police has been "rather chal‐ lenging and difficult."

Asked if there are any In‐ dian "sleeper agents" in Canada, Teboul said it's a "great question" but he can't say more about it because it's "very much at the centre of evidence and ongoing in‐ vestigations."

Federal Public Safety Min‐ ister Dominic LeBlanc con‐ gratulated the RCMP on the arrests and called Friday's developments "significant progress" in trying to get to the bottom of the circum‐ stances around Nijjar's killing.

"The work doesn't end here. In fact, the work contin‐ ues," LeBlanc told reporters on Parliament Hill.

WATCH: RCMP calls col‐ laboration with partner agencies in India 'rather challenging'

CBC News learned of the arrests - as well as other in‐ formation that was not an‐ nounced by police on Friday through extensive discus‐ sions with senior investiga‐ tive and government sources, as well as members of the Sikh community.

The investigative and gov‐ ernment sources spoke with CBC News on the condition that they not be named due to the sensitivity of the mat‐ ter. The sources in the Sikh community expressed con‐ cerns about their personal security, so CBC News is not disclosing their identities.

Shifting responses from India

Nijjar, a 45-year-old Canadian citizen, was shot dead on June 18, shortly after evening prayers at his Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in Surrey, B.C., in what appeared to be a highly coordinated attack, ac‐ cording to video of the inci‐ dent obtained by CBC's The Fifth Estate.

WATCH | The Fifth Es‐ tate shows how the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar was carried out

Last August, Canadian of‐ ficials told representatives of Indian Prime Minister Naren‐ dra Modi's government in person that Canada had in‐ telligence linking it to Nijjar's killing.

A month later - on Sept. 18, 2023, not long after re‐ turning from a fraught visit to India for the G20 Summit Prime Minister Justin Trudeau rose in the House of Commons to state that "Canadian security agencies have been actively pursuing credible allegations of a po‐ tential link between agents of the government of India" and

Nijjar's killing.

"Any involvement of a for‐ eign government in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil is an unac‐ ceptable violation of our sov‐ ereignty," he added.

Modi's government has denied it ordered extrajudici‐ al killings in the U.S. and Canada. Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar initially decried the Canadian allegation as "absurd" and accused Cana‐ da of harbouring violent ex‐ tremists.

WATCH | Trudeau links Indian government to fatal shooting in Canada

The minister's tone at a Sept. 27, 2023 speaking event was somewhat less confrontational. Jaishankar said at that time that "we told the Canadians that this is not the government of In‐ dia's policy."

In December, after a U.S. indictment accused an un‐ named Indian government employee of playing a role in a murder-for-hire plot in the U.S., Jaishankar issued anoth‐ er statement.

"We have always main‐ tained that if any country, not just Canada, has a concern and gives us some input or some basis for that concern, we are always open to look at it," he said.

Bloomberg reported in March that the Indian gov‐ ernment had given the U.S. a report in which it acknowl‐ edged that Indian agents were involved in the U.S. murder plot, but claimed they were rogue operatives.

At this stage of Canada's investigation, investigators are reluctant to expand on any possible connections be‐ tween Nijjar's alleged killers and Indian government offi‐ cials.

However, during a round‐ table with Canadian Punjabi media on Sunday, Trudeau said the work by intelligence and police agencies was on‐ going.

"It is very good and rigor‐ ous work. And when the time comes for them to conclude that investigation, there will be some very, very clear things that everyone around the world, including in India, will see as to responsibilities and involvement," he said.

Shot dead a day after being listed in India

Just two days after

Trudeau's bombshell state‐ ment in the House - on Sept. 20, 2023 - Sukhdool Singh Gill, 39, of Winnipeg was found shot to death in a du‐ plex in the city's northwest. A neighbour told police he heard 11 shots.

Gill also went by the alias Sukha Duneke and allegedly was part of the Davinder Bambiha gang in India, ac‐ cording to police documents in that country. Indian media have reported that he fled to Canada in 2017 using a false passport.

Gill was one of Punjab's most wanted men, accused of extortion and arranging money for gang members to buy weapons. Police in India have publicly linked him to murders and other serious crimes.

He was also on the radar of the government of India.

One day before his killing, Gill's name and photo ap‐ peared on a list of 43 names of suspected terrorists drawn up by India's National Investi‐ gation Agency (NIA), which linked him to the separatist Khalistan Tiger Force. India previously accused Nijjar of being part of the same orga‐ nization.

The day after Gill died, the NIA tweeted an image of him along with other wanted men.

Father and son slain to‐ gether

Six weeks after Gill's death, another alleged Indian gangland figure in another western province was shot dead in a brazen daylight at‐ tack that also claimed the life of his 11-year-old son.

Harpreet Uppal, a 41year-old with links to orga‐ nized crime, was shot dead in his vehicle in a busy subur‐ ban shopping area of Ed‐ monton on Nov. 9, 2023. Two boys were in the vehicle, Up‐ pal's 11-year-old son, Gavin, and a friend.

The Edmonton Police Ser‐ vice later said the killers shot both father and son, while sparing the other boy. EPS Acting Superintendent Colin Derkson said Gavin "was not caught in a crossfire or killed by mistake."

No one has been charged in the Gill or Uppal killings, and the sources told CBC News charges in connection to these cases are not ex‐ pected to come Friday.

The Bishnoi gang

All of the men arrested Friday are alleged associates of a criminal group in Punjab and neighbouring Haryana state that is associated with notorious Punjabi gangster Lawrence Bishnoi, currently held in India's high-security Sabarmati prison in Ahmed‐ abad, in Gujarat, according to sources close to the investi‐ gation.

Bishnoi is accused by the Indian government of the shooting murder of Punjabi singer-politician Sidhu Moose Wala, a former resident of Brampton, Ont., in Punjab in May 2022, as well as drug smuggling and extortion.

Bishnoi was one of two jailed Indian gangsters who claimed responsibility on so‐ cial media for Gill's killing last September, describing it as revenge for a previous gangland killing in India, ac‐ cording to widespread Indian media reports.

India has long alleged that Punjabi gangsters are able to use Canada as a base to squeeze money from busi‐ ness owners and others in In‐ dia, relying on an army of low-paid gunmen to act as collectors and enforcers back home.

According to both an un‐ sealed U.S. federal indict‐ ment and Canadian investi‐ gators, the Indian govern‐ ment itself took advantage of those criminal networks to go after its enemies in Cana‐ da and the U.S. - enemies such as Nijjar and Khalistani activist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, reportedly the target of an unsuccessful as‐ sassination plot in the U.S.

WATCH | U.S. indictment reveals alleged murder-forhire plot linked to India

Pannun was the key orga‐ nizer behind a series of inde‐ pendence votes in the Sikh diaspora. While the votes had no legal effect, they re‐ portedly infuriated the Modi government.

Nijjar was targeted by In‐ dia because of his role in helping to organize the votes in Canada's Sikh community, according to Canadian sources and the U.S. indict‐ ment.

Governments and gang‐ sters

One source close to the investigation told CBC News Canada is seeing foreign gov‐ ernments, including India, make use of criminal elemen‐ ts to carry out international operations.

"Why risk sending Indian government people when you can get so much mileage using people from organized crime?" the investigator said.

But while the investiga‐ tion is probing possible con‐ nections between Nijjar's killing and the Gill and Uppal cases, investigators are not convinced the Indian govern‐ ment was involved in the lat‐ ter two.

Investigators say the Ed‐ monton and Winnipeg killings may have had more to do with gangland rivalries and vendettas.

The foiled hit in the U.S.

The U.S. indictment alleges an Indian government em‐ ployee contracted a criminal to target enemies in North America.

On June 30, 2023, Czech authorities acting on a U.S. warrant arrested alleged In‐ dian drug trafficker Nikhil "Nick" Gupta. On Nov. 30 he was indicted in the U.S. for allegedly helping an un‐ named Indian government official hire a hitman to kill an unnamed Sikh independence activist in New York, reported to be Pannun, widely consid‐ ered India's number one target.

It was the Drug Enforce‐ ment Administration, rather than the FBI, that stumbled onto the U.S.-based conspir‐ acy while investigating Gupta in a narcotics case.

Gupta didn't know that the contact he asked to help him find a hitman was in fact a confidential informant of the DEA, the U.S. indictment alleges. Gupta has denied the charges and is facing extradi‐ tion to the United States. He has not been tried.

The U.S. indictment also referred to Canadian cases. It alleged the unnamed Indian government employee told Gupta the Nijjar killing had accelerated the timetable for the assassination in New York - "It's [a] priority now," he allegedly texted.

Gupta allegedly sent his supposed contract killer a video of Nijjar's body and told him to "do it quickly."

The U.S. indictment says Gupta told the police infor‐ mant in an audio call that they had "four jobs" to finish before June 29 - one in New York and "three in Canada."

The publication of court documents in his case was one of a number of incidents that concerned Canadian in‐ vestigators, who watched closely to see what effect the revelations might have on their own surveillance targets in Canada.

A uniquely time

While the prime minister and U.S. authorities have pointed the finger at the Indi‐ an government, Canadian in‐ vestigators have struggled with the question of how high up the Indian chain of command they should pur‐ sue charges.

Investigators long ago dis‐ missed the notion that India's overseas assassination cam‐ paign is a rogue operation, as the Indian government has maintained.

They say they believe that Indian officials would not dare to proceed with assassi‐ nations in Western countries without official sanction. As CBC News has previously re‐ ported, Canadian govern‐ ment sources say Canada has evidence of communica‐ tions between Indian govern‐ ment officials in India and Canada collected in the course of their investigation.

The arrests come as Indi‐ ans go to the polls in a na‐ tional election that takes sev‐ eral weeks of voting to pro‐ duce a result, expected on June 4. Modi is expected to win a third term in office. sensitive