Canada was playing with fire for a long and now it has started burning the house

New Delhi: A few years before his gangland-style killing, Ripudaman Singh Malik, 75, was a changed man. He had made peace with the Indian government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. His name had been removed from the blacklist of people who were barred from visiting India and visited Amritsar to pay obeisance at Darbar Sahib. 

Malik was accused of being involved in the bombing of flight AI182 on June 23, 1985, which took the lives of 329 passengers and crew who were on board. It was one of the biggest terror attacks at that point in time.

Part 1: How 'Canadian Dream' of Gen Next of Punjabi diaspora is getting shattered

But in 2005 he was acquitted by a Canadian court of the charge. Malik even wrote a letter to PM Modi in January 2022 thanking him for taking steps to address long-pending demands of Sikhs, foremost of which was the removal of names from the blacklist.

On July 14, 2022, Malik was killed in Surrey, British Columbia. 

Whispers floated on social media on the involvement of Indian agencies in the killing of Malik but the charge flies in the face of facts. Malik had taken steps to make peace with the Indian government months prior to his killing. And he was being threatened on his turf by another Khalistani, Hardeep Singh Nijjar. He had openly called Malik a traitor and demanded he be taught a lesson. 

In response, Malik had accused Nijjar of working at the behest of Pakistan. 

Indian police say Nijjar was involved in orchestrating many killings in Punjab. Baba Bhaniara, in 2014, Dera Saccha Sauda follower Manohar Lal in 2021 and planning to kill a Hindu priest, Pragya Gyan Muni in the same year. He was also accused of organising training camps for terrorists in Canada. 

Mandeep Singh Dhaliwal had attended the camp organised by Nijjar and later he was arrested in Punjab in 2016 for planning to kill Shiv Sena leaders there. 

Since 2019, he also headed the Canada chapter of Sikhs for Justice (of the US-based Gurpatwant Singh Pannun) and its ‘Khalistan Referendum’ campaign. 

Nijjar had a stake in the violent war in Canada for control over Gurdwaras who get huge donations from the Punjabi diaspora. 

Nijjar was a problem since the day he landed in Canada in 1997 on a fake passport. He sought asylum there by claiming that he was tortured by the police in Punjab but his claims were not found to be genuine during a medical examination. 

His plea for asylum was rejected. He again sought residency in Canada, this time by claiming marriage to a Canadian citizen. But the Canadian authorities rejected the claim as they suspected it was a marriage only for the sake of staying in Canada. But after a four-year struggle, Nijjar managed to get Canadian citizenship and started working as a plumber.

He started showing true colours at the behest of Pakistan’s ISI, suspect Indian officials. 

Nijjar is also accused of raising a group to kill former Punjab police Director General of Police (DGP) Mohammed Azhar Alam, Mohali-based Shiv Sena leader Nishant Sharma and Baba Mann Singh Pehwala. 

In 2018, Nijjar was appointed president of Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in Surrey for three years. His rallies increased in Canada demanding Khalistan since then. 

In September 2020, Nijjar was awarded the “Khalistan Zalvatni Yodha" title by a Gurdwara in Abbotsford. He was active during farm law protests in India holding protest rallies in Surrey. 

But what made Nijjar more dangerous than other Khalistanis active in Canada was his association with gangster-turned-terrorist Arshdeep Singh alias Arash Dalla.

To be continued…