Fourth Indian citizen arrested for murder of Sikh separatist leader in Canada

A fourth Indian national was arrested in the brazen assassination of a Sikh separatist leader in Canada last year.

Amandeep Singh, 22, was already in custody in an unrelated case before he was identified as a suspect in the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, police said late Saturday.

Nijjar was shot dead on June 18 outside the Guru Nanak Gurdwara church he ran in the Vancouver suburb of Surrey.

Earlier this month, three Indian nationals who were temporary residents of Canada – Kamalpreet Singh, 22, Karan Brar, 22, and Karanpreet Singh, 28 – were arrested and charged with Nijjar’s murder. They made their first court appearance last week.

Nijjar was a prominent advocate for the creation of an independent Sikh nation called Khalistan in what is now the Sikh-majority state of Punjab.

India had classified Nijjar as a terrorist and sought his extradition from Canada in 2016, but the request was rejected.

Before his death, Nijjar learned that people were trying to kill him. However, he never traveled with security personnel. Witnesses told police that two men opened fire as Nijjar stood in the gurdwara parking lot.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in September that there was credible evidence that the Indian government was behind Nijjar’s murder. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was appalled by the accusation and sent dozens of Canadian diplomats home in response.

Amandeep Singh is believed to be one of the two gunmen, sources told Global News in Canada. According to Global News, he was arrested in November 2023 in the Toronto suburb of Brampton on gun and drug charges and has been in custody since then.

Police said the four suspects may have links to India’s Bishnoi crime group, Global News reported. Amandeep Singh was arrested along with four other men when he was arrested outside Toronto.

In late November 2023, the FBI announced that it had foiled a similar-sounding plot to assassinate another prominent Sikh activist, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, in New York. According to charging documents in the case, Pannun and Nijjar were both targets of the Indian government.

Indian leaders have insisted that the government played no role in the assassination of Nijjar or a conspiracy against Pannun.

The Sikh independence movement was at its strongest in the 1980s, but the uprising was crushed by a violent government crackdown that killed thousands. In 1984, Indian forces attacked a Sikh armed group at Sikhism’s holiest site, the Golden Temple.

After Indian forces captured the temple, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by two of her bodyguards, both of whom were Sikhs.

With News Wire Services