Sikh leader killed outside Surrey, B.C., temple warned by CSIS he was in danger

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The president of a Sikh temple in Surrey, B.C., who had been warned by Canada’s spy agency that he was in danger, was shot and killed on the gurdwara grounds on Sunday, prompting a new flare-up of old tensions that have simmered since the Air India bombing 38 years ago.

At a news conference Monday, RCMP confirmed Hardeep Singh Nijjar was found in a truck outside the Guru Nanak Gurdwara suffering gunshot wounds. He died at the scene.

Surrey RCMP Assistant Commissioner Brian Edwards called the homicide a “brazen act of violence,” but insisted the city remains a safe place to be.

“We’re not going to stand for it. It’s appalling, it’s disgusting.”

The team is investigating the shooting as a targeted incident and is looking into whether it is linked to a burned-out car police found in Coquitlam, another Vancouver suburb, later Sunday night.

On Monday afternoon, five RCMP vehicles guarded the 121st Street exit to the Guru Nanak gurdwara, which is shrouded in yellow police tape. An RCMP drone buzzed overhead.

Mr. Nijjar, 45, had been president of the gurdwara for four years. He had a wife and two sons in their 20s. He was a volunteer with Sikhs For Justice and was an outspoken supporter for the creation of the separate Sikh state of Khalistan, said Bhupinder Singh Hothi, the general secretary of the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara Society. He said Mr. Nijjar had previously received death threats because of his support for a separate Sikh state of Khalistan, in India, but the shooting will not deter those who share his beliefs.

The World Sikh Organization of Canada, a non-profit that says it advocates for the interests of Canadian Sikhs, issued a news release on Monday calling the killing an “assassination.”

It said the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and police “were aware of the threat to Nijjar as well as other Sikh activists in Canada.”

In 2016, Mr. Nijjar wrote to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, asking for federal security agencies to clear his name amid media reports in the Times of India that Indian intelligence agents were identifying him as a terrorism suspect.

“Prime Minister Trudeau, my Sikh nationalist activities are peaceful, democratic and protected under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms,” the letter said. It added that Mr. Nijjar operates a small plumbing business to support his family.

The Vancouver Sun reported this week that CSIS intelligence officers had lately been warning Mr. Nijjar about threats to his life. CSIS did not respond Monday to questions from The Globe and Mail seeking comment. A lawyer for Mr. Nijjar also did not respond to a request for comment.

Court documents from February also show Mr. Nijjar was involved in a heated dispute with others.

According to the documents, the Akal Takhat, the highest religious authority in Sikhism, in August, 2020, directed a religious society in Surrey to hand over book-printing machinery to Mr. Nijjar. But in November, 2022, the Akal Takhat allegedly urged Mr. Nijjar to return the equipment to the Satnam Parchar Religious Society.

“Mr. Nijjar failed to comply with the Akal Takhat’s direction,” the statement of claim says.

In a court-filed defence document dated March 15, lawyers acting for Mr. Nijjar and his temple said they doubted the authenticity of the religious edict they were presented with demanding the return of the printing machines.

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Mr. Nijjar’s defence documents noted a 1998 religious decree “forbidding the printing” of Sikh holy scriptures by any private parties. The defence alleged that despite this, some B.C.-based Sikhs had “set up a private printing operation” in the Vancouver area that was “controversial within the Sikh community worldwide.”

The lawyer for the society, Jaspreet Malik, told The Globe and Mail in an interview Monday that the Akal Takhat “is equivalent in the Sikh religion to the Vatican.” Even so, he said that matter was a minor dispute that would have had “nothing whatsoever” to do with Mr. Nijjar’s sudden slaying. “It’s about $40,000 worth of equipment,” he said.

Mr. Malik is the son of Ripudaman Singh Malik, a Vancouver area Sikh who was a long-standing suspect in the 1985 Air India bombing. The elder Malik was acquitted at his 2005 criminal trial, but he was killed last year in a homicide for which two suspects are to face trial this fall.

In the aftermath, Mr. Nijjar and his lawyer publicly denied reports in the Hindustan Times suggesting that his client might have played a role in the elder Mr. Malik’s death.

On Monday, the younger Mr. Malik said he never thought those reports were credible and that he sees the shooting death of Mr. Nijjar as a tragedy. “He’s got two little kids and it was Father’s Day yesterday – that’s just sad.”

The elder Mr. Malik was among three people charged with the Air India bombing 38 years ago this week. The terrorist attack which killed 329 people, including 280 Canadian citizens and permanent residents, aboard an airliner that originated in Vancouver and exploded off the coast of Ireland. Two baggage handlers at the Tokyo airport were also killed in another explosion the same day.

Support for the secession of the Punjab from India to form a territory known as Khalistan has long prompted turmoil in Surrey’s large Sikh population. Proponents are currently campaigning for Sikhs to vote in an international referendum on the question. Other community members want no part in it.

Gurmeet Singh Sekhum, a Surrey plumber and acquaintance of Mr. Nijjar, was at the temple to pay his respects. He said he is frustrated by internal disputes that continue to divide the temple community.

“Politics,” he says, “is a bad habit.”

With files from The Canadian Press.