Muhammad Hamza, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Pointer

After claims by a senior federal government official last week that the Indian government is no longer involved in criminal activities on Canadian soil, the RCMP has informed The Pointer of ongoing investigations involving New Delhi’s links to criminal networks here.

“The RCMP has a number of ongoing investigations pertaining to this type of activity,” RCMP spokesperson Marie-Eve Breton confirmed in an email late Monday afternoon. “For operational integrity and security, we will not provide further information until charges have been laid and it is a matter of public record.”

The Pointer asked the RCMP Monday morning if it continues to investigate alleged links between the government of India and criminal networks operating in Canada.

The acknowledgement by the RCMP of ongoing investigations came on the same day that explosive reporting by the Globe and Mail was published, allegedly linking the Indian government to the 2023 assassination of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar outside a Surrey, B.C. Gurdwara. He was a leading voice calling for the creation of an independent Sikh homeland to be carved out of the northwestern Indian state of Punjab, where Sikhs are the majority.

The Globe reported, according to two sources (one in law enforcement and one who works in national security), that evidence in the hands of the RCMP, Canada’s spy agency and with authorities in the U.S. and the United Kingdom links Indian government employees who worked in the country’s Vancouver consulate to Mr. Nijjar’s killing.

Indian government staff in the consulate, the Globe reported, handed over information on Nijjar to an Indian agent in New Delhi named Vikash Yadav.

Yadav is the same person The Pointer has reported on extensively, after a foiled plot to assassinate a dual Canadian-American citizen and Sikh rights leader based in New York was laid out in an unsealed U.S. indictment that includes detailed transcripts from wiretaps. 

Yadav, according to the Globe’s sources, used the information provided by the Indian consular staff in Vancouver and directed the Indian-based Lawrence Bishnoi gang, a criminal network that has allegedly been operating in Canada since at least 2023, to have Nijjar killed. 

On Saturday, during Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s trade mission to India, the country’s High Commissioner to Canada, Dinesh Patnaik, told reporters in Mumbai that the Indian government was never involved in any criminal activities on Canadian soil, claiming “it never happened”, despite the surveillance evidence laid out in the U.S. indictment. 

In the wake of widespread backlash to the claims by a senior Liberal government official last week, who told reporters in Canada the day before Carney left on his three-country visit that India is no longer involved in transnational repression here, the RCMP told The Pointer that threats against Canada’s Sikh community have been investigated for the last two years.  

“At the time of the October 14, 2024, announcement, the RCMP had been conducting investigations for an extensive period. Where serious, significant public safety threats were uncovered, a proactive public awareness approach was adopted to prevent continuation of harm.”

A series of “duty to warn” notices was issued by the RCMP to Sikh activists across the country whose life was in imminent danger, according to intelligence information that has been shared by victims of the threats with The Pointer.

In India, on Monday, Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand answered questions from Canadian reporters about the claims made last week by the unnamed senior Liberal government official: “The words of the senior official are not words that I personally would use.” 

Shortly after publication of the latest evidence linking the Indian government to Mr. Nijjar’s murder, the World Sikh Organization of Canada (WSO) released a statement expressing “disappointment with Prime Minister Mark Carney’s comments in New Delhi where he stood beside Prime Minister Narendra Modi and declared, ‘We are one family.’ He also invited Modi to visit Canada.”  

“If Prime Minister Carney considers the Government of India part of Canada’s ‘family,’ Sikh Canadians are left wondering where we fit in that definition.”

The WSO questioned why Carney has refused to take “a single question from Canadian journalists during his trip to India. His first scheduled press conference was cancelled, and Canadians have been given no opportunity to hear him address these serious developments,” reported in the Globe. 

“Prime Minister Carney stood beside Prime Minister Narendra Modi today and declared, ‘We are one family!’

“Families do not assassinate, extort, or intimidate one another,” WSO President Danish Singh said.

The National Post reported that on Saturday, CSIS confirmed India still remains a top foreign interference threat to Canada.

“CSIS’s threat assessment of the main perpetrators of foreign interference and espionage against Canada has not changed,” with “China, Russia, India” among the worst countries targeting Canadians.

The U.S. indictment offers chilling evidence of New Delhi’s activities in Canada and America.

Nikhil Gupta recently pleaded guilty to his role in the thwarted attempt to murder Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a New York-based lawyer and Sikh rights activist who has dual Canadian-American citizenship and was a close associate of Mr. Nijjar. The harrowing case was documented in the second superseding indictment released by the Justice Department in 2024. The unsealed document, which was peppered with quotes from wiretap and other surveillance material, directly linked the assassination of Nijjar to Yadav, the Indian government agent who allegedly directed the murder plot to kill Pannun, and, according to the Globe’s reporting, also allegedly directed the assassination of Nijjar.

“Nijjar was an associate of the victim (Pannun)… just hours after the Nijjar murder, YADAV sent GUPTA a video clip that showed Nijjar’s bloody body slumped in his vehicle,” the indictment details.

Yadav was charged with murder-for-hire and money laundering charges in 2024; he allegedly recruited Gupta to orchestrate the assassination of Pannun in New York. He has yet to be arrested on those charges and remains wanted by the FBI. 

Nijjar was described as one of the “targets” of the broader plot that involved Pannun. Yadav, according to the indictment, arranged to have Indian criminal charges against Gupta wiped away in exchange for organizing assassinations in Canada and the U.S.. According to a press release from the Department of Justice, Gupta is described as an international narcotics and weapons trafficker.

“The boss,” Yadav told Gupta, had cleared his criminal problems in India. “Nobody will ever bother you again,” the Indian government agent told Gupta, according to the surveillance transcripts in the indictment.

“We will be needing one good team in Canada,” Gupta then allegedly told one of the co-conspirators, describing Mr. Nijjar as a “big target” in Canada.

After receiving the video clip from Yadav showing Nijjar’s bloodied body in his car and instructions from the Indian agent to have Pannun killed immediately, Gupta, according to the surveillance material, told a hitman he hired, that before June 29, 2023, “we have to finish four jobs”: Pannun’s assassination in the U.S., “and three in Canada.”

Yadav offered $100,000 for a contract hit and recruited Gupta to arrange the murder of the Sikh separatist leader in New York. The investigation also detailed that Gupta, around May 2023, contacted a confidential source he believed was a criminal associate but was actually an undercover agent working with U.S. law enforcement, and asked if he knew anyone willing to carry out murder-for-hire in the U.S..

Later, the hitman was hired to carry out the plot, and they discussed the logistics and the price for the murder.

“We are ready to pay $150,000… the offer will go higher depending upon the quality of the work…and if it’s done as soon as possible,” the government employee said when discussing the payment for killing Pannun. Gupta replied with a screenshot from the confidential source requesting $100,000. Yadav, the alleged government employee, agreed, adding that while an advance payment was not possible, “the whole money will be paid within 24 hours after the work is done.”

Then, in June of the same year, Yadav allegedly provided Gupta with the personal information of Pannun, including his home address in New York, phone number, and information of his day-to-day routine, which he then shared with the undercover agent, advising him not to carry out the assassination near the time of an official state visit to the U.S. by Modi, which was scheduled to begin on or around June 20, 2023.

Gupta told the undercover agent, “we will give more bigger job more, more job every month, every month 2-3 job” and stated “there was a ‘big target’ in Canada”. The indictment details that Gupta told the undercover agent, “we are doing their job, brother. We are doing their New York [and] Canada [job],” referring to Yadav who directed the assassination plots from India. 

Eventually, according to the indictment, Gupta said other hitmen were hired to carry out the planned killings in Canada and that “Nijjar ‘was also the target’ but that Nijjar was ‘#4, #3’ on the list, and ‘not to worry [because] we have so many targets, we have so many targets. But the good news is this, the good news is this: now no need to wait’.” 

After Mr. Nijjar was gunned down outside the Surrey Gurdwara, Gupta gave more instructions and information to the undercover agent about the New York target, Pannun: “He will be more cautious, because in Canada, his colleague is down. His colleague is down. I sent you the video. So he will be more cautious, so we should not give them the chance, any chance.” Gupta added: “If he is not alone, [if] there are two guys with him in the meeting or something… put everyone down, put everyone down.”

In October 2024, the RCMP released an explosive report alleging the Modi government’s involvement in attacks against Sikh Canadians by using criminal elements linked to the Lawrence Bishnoi gang.

RCMP Commissioner Michael Duheme, together with Assistant Commissioner Brigitte Gauvin, said the Bishnoi gang has connections to the Indian government and is involved in criminal acts against Sikh Canadians.

“I won’t be providing any further details in regard to the specificity of those investigations, but what we have seen from an RCMP perspective is the use of organized crime elements,” Gauvin detailed. “And I will say… It’s been publicly attributed and claimed by one organized crime group in particular, which is the Bishnoi group.”

“That’s what we are seeing here in Canada, and we believe that that group is connected to agents of the government of India.”

On Monday, the RCMP told The Pointer the Sikh community in Canada should remain vigilant.

“Communications between the RCMP and National Investigation Agency have been ongoing and there have been multiple meetings since the 2024 statement… There continues to be law enforcement activities in place to keep the South Asian community safe from criminal targeting. Should a member of the South Asian community, or any community, be concerned or aware of suspicious information, we encourage them to report it to their local police or directly to the RCMP National Security Information network by phone (1-800-420-5805) or online at www.rcmp.ca/report-it.”

Sikh leaders in Brampton have called out the six local MPs for their failure to take action while community members continue to feel threatened. Some have vowed to vote them out of office if they continue to remain silent after the controversial claims by the unnamed Liberal government official last week.

The Pointer reached out to all of Brampton’s MPs Monday: Liberals Ruby Sahota, Amandeep Sodhi, Shafqat Ali, Sonia Sidhu and Maninder Sidhu, as well as Conservative Amarjeet Gill. They did not respond. All but Ali are Sikhs.

Email: muhammad.hamza@thepointer.com

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