Trudeau should count number of Punjab-origin drivers caught at US-Canadian border on charges of drug smuggling

New Delhi: Justin Trudeau’s efforts to corner India on the killing of Khalistani terrorist has brought a harsh focus on Canada’s criminal networks using truck drivers from the Punjabi diaspora to bring in drugs from the United States and Mexico. 

“The dark underbelly of Canadian criminal networks involved in drug smuggling is littered with instances of Punjabi truck drivers getting caught at the US-Canada open border while bringing narcotics in their trucks,” said a security official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. 

Indian security officials suspect besides a part of donations made at Gurdwaras going for the Khalistan cause, drug smuggling is another way of generating funds for carrying out targeted killings back in Punjab. 

It has been reported that Punjab-origin transporters control around 60 per cent of all trucking business in Canada. 

However, some of these truckers are increasingly becoming drug smugglers. 

In the last two to three years itself, over a dozen Punjabi drivers have been arrested at the Canada-US border on the charges of smuggling.

Not only genuine transport companies are being infiltrated by the drug smuggling networks but even some companies are being floated for the purpose of smuggling only. 

In July 2022, it was reported in Canadian media that Preet Kiran Singh Gill, the owner of a transport company had been sentenced to nine years in prison after he was found guilty of importing drugs into Canada.

In August 2022, Sarabjit Chahal was sentenced to four years for bringing in 33 Kg of methamphetamine into Canada. 

In November, another truck driver, 26-year-old Calgary man Gurkirat Singh, was arrested for drug smuggling.

Voices are being raised in the Punjabi diaspora in Canada against the smuggling networks involving Punjabi men. 

In 2018, Surjit Singh Flora, a Brompton-based writer wrote in “Toronto Sun” that it was a very unfortunate and dangerous trend as the young generation of Punjabis in Canada getting trapped in smuggling. 

He opined: “Some of these drugs originate in Afghanistan where there is a large amount of opium cultivation. The drug from Afghanistan then goes to Pakistan and then to the border. Some parts of the drug from Punjab go straight to foreign countries and some parts are sent to Canada, the U.S. and other countries through Mumbai and Nepal. A large racket works at the international level of drug trafficking.

The Punjabi community’s new generation is being lured by the promise of making money fast. Our societies need to start campaigning against this deadly tendency.”

Sources say for easy money these drivers are lured by the smuggling gangs. These drivers are already in debt to come to Canada through immigration pimps. And coordinators of criminal networks target them as they know their families back home in Punjab in case they try to run away with drugs. Therefore it’s easier to trap them. 

Before being killed, Nijjar was working with gangsters like Arshdeep Singh Gill alias Arsh Dala who is into drug smuggling and running extortion rackets in Punjab. Nijjar used his network in Punjab to target people to revive Khalistani extremism. 

Gangsters like Dala find fertile land in Canada because of the extensive criminal network of Indo-Canadian gangs. 

Trudeau is playing with fire while defending terrorists like Nijjar. They have brought their Khalistan terrorism to Canadian soil and by accusing of India of carrying out Nijjar’s killing he has only emboldened Khalistanis in Canada which will come to haunt Ottawa again. 

Trudeau should remember that in the Kanishka bombing of 1985 majority of those killed were Canadian nationals. Even his coalition partner Jagmeet Singh is out and out Khakistani who refused to believe the Kanishka bombing was carried out by Khalistani terrorists despite two Canadian inquiry reports indicting Khalistani terrorists. Only in the face of rebellion within his own party over the issue, he changed his stand. 

But in his zeal to corner India, Trudeau it seems has turned a blind eye to evidence that is visible to even the naked eye.