Canadian police have arrested members of an alleged hit squad investigators believe was tasked by the government of India with killing prominent Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, B.C. last June,
Sources close to the investigation also told that police are actively investigating possible links to three additional murders in Canada, including the shooting death of an 11-year-old boy in Edmonton.
Members of the hit squad are alleged to have played different roles as shooters, drivers and spotters on the day Nijjar was killed at the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in Surrey, according to the sources.
Sources said investigators identified the alleged hit squad members in Canada some months ago and have been keeping them under tight surveillance.
Kamalpreet Singh, Karanpreet Singh and Karan Brar face first-degree murder and conspiracy charges in the Nijjar case, according to documents filed in a Surrey court Friday. The charges have not been tested in court.
Although sources initially told CBC News that raids were expected in at least two provinces, RCMP confirmed Friday that all three men were arrested separately in Edmonton without incident — two of them in their homes and another elsewhere.
‘This investigation does not end here,’ says RCMP officer
All of the accused are Indian citizens and have been non-permanent residents of Canada for three to five years, RCMP officers told reporters at their Friday press conference announcing the charges.
Sources told the men arrived in Canada on temporary visas after 2021, some of them student visas. None are believed to have pursued education while in Canada. None have obtained permanent residency.
Others tied to this crime could be arrested in the coming days, police said.
“This investigation does not end here. We are aware that others may have played a role in this homicide and we remain dedicated to finding and arresting each one of these individuals,” said Supt. Mandeep Mooker, the officer in charge of the B.C. RCMP’s Integrated Homicide Investigation Team (IHIT).
Moninder Singh, Bhupinder Singh Hoti and a family member — relatives and friends of the late Hardeep Singh Nijjar — walk into the RCMP ‘E’ division headquarters in Surrey, B.C., on Friday. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
Assistant Commissioner David Teboul, the RCMP commander for the Pacific region, said he wouldn’t comment on the alleged links between these men and Indian officials.
He did say the force is “investigating connections to the government of India.”
But Teboul said the force’s relationship with Indian police has been “rather challenging and difficult.”
Asked if there are any Indian “sleeper agents” in Canada, Teboul said it’s a “great question” but he can’t say more about it because it’s “very much at the centre of evidence and ongoing investigations.”
WATCH: RCMP calls collaboration with partner agencies in India ‘rather challenging’
RCMP calls collaboration with partner agencies in India ‘rather challenging’
2 hours ago
Duration 1:06
RCMP Assistant Commissioner David Teboul says police have been collaborating and communicating with partner agencies in India but it has been ‘difficult for the last several years.’
learned of the arrests — as well as other information that was not announced by police on Friday — through extensive discussions with senior investigative and government sources, as well as members of the Sikh community.
The investigative and government sources spoke with CBC News on the condition that they not be named due to the sensitivity of the matter. The sources in the Sikh community expressed concerns about their personal security, so CBC News is not disclosing their identities.
Shifting responses from India
Nijjar, a 45-year-old Canadian citizen, was shot dead on June 18, shortly after evening prayers at his Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in Surrey, B.C., in what appeared to be a highly coordinated attack, according to video of the incident obtained by CBC’s The Fifth Estate.
WATCH | The Fifth Estate shows how the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar was carried out
Exclusive surveillance video of the targeted killing of Canadian Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar on June 18, 2023.
2 months ago
Duration 1:22
The Fifth Estate shows how the killing of a Sikh Canadian activist was carried out, allegedly by agents of the government of India.
Last August, Canadian officials told representatives of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government in person that Canada had intelligence linking it to Nijjar’s killing.
A month later — on Sept. 18, 2023, not long after returning from a fraught visit to India for the G20 Summit — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau rose in the House of Commons to state that “Canadian security agencies have been actively pursuing credible allegations of a potential link between agents of the government of India” and Nijjar’s killing.
IHIT Superintendent Mandeep Mooker speaks during a press conference announcing the arrest of 3 individuals related to the death of Hardeep Singh Nijjar at RCMP ‘E’ division headquarters in Surrey, B.C., on Friday May 3, 2024. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
“Any involvement of a foreign government in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil is an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty,” he added.
Modi’s government has denied it ordered extrajudicial killings in the U.S. and Canada. Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar initially decried the Canadian allegation as “absurd” and accused Canada of harbouring violent extremists.
WATCH | Trudeau links Indian government to fatal shooting in Canada
Trudeau says ‘credible allegations’ link India to killing of Sikh leader in Canada
8 months ago
Duration 2:47
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says any foreign government involvement in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil is ‘an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty.’
The minister’s tone at a Sept. 27, 2023 speaking event was somewhat less confrontational. Jaishankar said at that time that “we told the Canadians that this is not the government of India’s policy.”
In December, after a U.S. indictment accused an unnamed Indian government employee of playing a role in a murder-for-hire plot in the U.S., Jaishankar issued another statement.
“We have always maintained that if any country, not just Canada, has a concern and gives us some input or some basis for that concern, we are always open to look at it,” he said.
Bloomberg reported in March that the Indian government had given the U.S. a report in which it acknowledged that Indian agents were involved in the U.S. murder plot, but claimed they were rogue operatives.
At this stage of Canada’s investigation, investigators are reluctant to expand on any possible connections between Nijjar’s alleged killers and Indian government officials.
However, during a roundtable with Canadian Punjabi media on Sunday, Trudeau said the work by intelligence and police agencies was ongoing.
“It is very good and rigorous work. And when the time comes for them to conclude that investigation, there will be some very, very clear things that everyone around the world, including in India, will see as to responsibilities and involvement,” he said.
Shot dead a day after being listed in India
Just two days after Trudeau’s bombshell statement in the House — on Sept. 20, 2023 — Sukhdool Singh Gill, 39, of Winnipeg was found shot to death in a duplex in the city’s northwest. A neighbour told police he heard 11 shots.
Gill also went by the alias Sukha Duneke and allegedly was part of the Davinder Bambiha gang in India, according to police documents in that country. Indian media have reported that he fled to Canada in 2017 using a false passport.
Gill was one of Punjab’s most wanted men, accused of extortion and arranging money for gang members to buy weapons. Police in India have publicly linked him to murders and other serious crimes.
He was also on the radar of the government of India.
One day before his killing, Gill’s name and photo appeared on a list of 43 names of suspected terrorists drawn up by India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA), which linked him to the separatist Khalistan Tiger Force. India previously accused Nijjar of being part of the same organization.
The day after Gill died, the NIA tweeted an image of him along with other wanted men.
Sukhdool Singh Gill appeared on a wanted list released via the social media platform X by India’s National Investigation Agency — a specialized counter-terrorism law enforcement agency — on Sept. 21, 2023. Gill, 39, was found dead in a northwest Winnipeg home the same week. (NIA India/X)
Father and son slain together
Six weeks after Gill’s death, another alleged Indian gangland figure in another western province was shot dead in a brazen daylight attack that also claimed the life of his 11-year-old son.
Harpreet Uppal, a 41-year-old with links to organized crime, was shot dead in his vehicle in a busy suburban shopping area of Edmonton on Nov. 9, 2023. Two boys were in the vehicle, Uppal’s 11-year-old son, Gavin, and a friend.
The Edmonton Police Service later said the killers shot both father and son, while sparing the other boy. EPS Acting Superintendent Colin Derkson said Gavin “was not caught in a crossfire or killed by mistake.”
No one has been charged in the Gill or Uppal killings, and the sources told CBC News charges in connection to these cases are not expected to come Friday.
The Bishnoi gang
All of the men arrested Friday are alleged associates of a criminal group in Punjab and neighbouring Haryana state that is associated with notorious Punjabi gangster Lawrence Bishnoi, currently held in India’s high-security Sabarmati prison in Ahmedabad, in Gujarat, according to sources close to the investigation.
Bishnoi is accused by the Indian government of the shooting murder of Punjabi singer-politician Sidhu Moose Wala, a former resident of Brampton, Ont., in Punjab in May 2022, as well as drug smuggling and extortion.
Bishnoi was one of two jailed Indian gangsters who claimed responsibility on social media for Gill’s killing last September, describing it as revenge for a previous gangland killing in India, according to widespread Indian media reports.
India has long alleged that Punjabi gangsters are able to use Canada as a base to squeeze money from business owners and others in India, relying on an army of low-paid gunmen to act as collectors and enforcers back home.
According to both an unsealed U.S. federal indictment and Canadian investigators, the Indian government itself took advantage of those criminal networks to go after its enemies in Canada and the U.S. — enemies such as Nijjar and Khalistani activist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, reportedly the target of an unsuccessful assassination plot in the U.S.
WATCH | U.S. indictment reveals alleged murder-for-hire plot linked to India
Who was Hardeep Singh Nijjar, the man India is accused of killing?
7 months ago
Duration 3:40
Hardeep Singh Nijjar was a pro-Khalistan activist and the president of a Sikh temple in Surrey, B.C. His day job was working as a plumber. For years, the Indian government called him a terrorist — a claim Nijjar repeatedly denied. So, who was Nijjar, and why did India think he was such a danger?
Pannun was the key organizer behind a series of independence votes in the Sikh diaspora. While the votes had no legal effect, they reportedly infuriated the Modi government.
Nijjar was targeted by India because of his role in helping to organize the votes in Canada’s Sikh community, according to Canadian sources and the U.S. indictment.
Governments and gangsters
One source close to the investigation told CBC News Canada is seeing foreign governments, including India, make use of criminal elements to carry out international operations.
“Why risk sending Indian government people when you can get so much mileage using people from organized crime?” the investigator said.
But while the investigation is probing possible connections between Nijjar’s killing and the Gill and Uppal cases, investigators are not convinced the Indian government was involved in the latter two.
Investigators say the Edmonton and Winnipeg killings may have had more to do with gangland rivalries and vendettas.
The foiled hit in the U.S.
The U.S. indictment alleges an Indian government employee contracted a criminal to target enemies in North America.
On June 30, 2023, Czech authorities acting on a U.S. warrant arrested alleged Indian drug trafficker Nikhil “Nick” Gupta. On Nov. 30 he was indicted in the U.S. for allegedly helping an unnamed Indian government official hire a hitman to kill an unnamed Sikh independence activist in New York, reported to be Pannun, widely considered India’s number one target.
It was the Drug Enforcement Administration, rather than the FBI, that stumbled onto the U.S.-based conspiracy while investigating Gupta in a narcotics case.
Gupta didn’t know that the contact he asked to help him find a hitman was in fact a confidential informant of the DEA, the U.S. indictment alleges. Gupta has denied the charges and is facing extradition to the United States. He has not been tried.
The U.S. indictment also referred to Canadian cases. It alleged the unnamed Indian government employee told Gupta the Nijjar killing had accelerated the timetable for the assassination in New York — “It’s [a] priority now,” he allegedly texted.
Gupta allegedly sent his supposed contract killer a video of Nijjar’s body and told him to “do it quickly.”
The U.S. indictment says Gupta told the police informant in an audio call that they had “four jobs” to finish before June 29 — one in New York and “three in Canada.”
The publication of court documents in his case was one of a number of incidents that concerned Canadian investigators, who watched closely to see what effect the revelations might have on their own surveillance targets in Canada.
A uniquely sensitive time
While the prime minister and U.S. authorities have pointed the finger at the Indian government, Canadian investigators have struggled with the question of how high up the Indian chain of command they should pursue charges.
Investigators long ago dismissed the notion that India’s overseas assassination campaign is a rogue operation, as the Indian government has maintained.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, left, walks past Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as they take part in a wreath-laying ceremony at Raj Ghat, Mahatma Gandhi’s cremation site, during the G20 Summit in New Delhi, Sept. 10, 2023. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)
They say they believe that Indian officials would not dare to proceed with assassinations in Western countries without official sanction. As CBC News has previously reported, Canadian government sources say Canada has evidence of communications between Indian government officials in India and Canada collected in the course of their investigation.
The arrests come as Indians go to the polls in a national election that takes several weeks of voting to produce a result, expected on June 4. Modi is expected to win a third term in office.
OTTAWA – Liberal House leader Karina Gould lambasted Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre as a “fraudster” this morning after he said the federal carbon price is going to cause a “nuclear winter.”
Gould was speaking just before the House of Commons is set to reopen following the summer break.
“What I heard yesterday from Mr. Poilievre was so over the top, so irresponsible, so immature, and something that only a fraudster would do,” she said from Parliament Hill.
On Sunday Poilievre said increasing the carbon price will cause a “nuclear winter,” painting a dystopian picture of people starving and freezing because they can’t afford food or heat due the carbon price.
He said the Liberals’ obsession with carbon pricing is “an existential threat to our economy and our way of life.”
The carbon price currently adds about 17.6 cents to every litre of gasoline, but that cost is offset by carbon rebates mailed to Canadians every three months. The Parliamentary Budget Office provided analysis that showed eight in 10 households receive more from the rebates than they pay in carbon pricing, though the office also warned that long-term economic effects could harm jobs and wage growth.
Gould accused Poilievre of ignoring the rebates, and refusing to tell Canadians how he would make life more affordable while battling climate change. The Liberals have also accused the Conservatives of dismissing the expertise of more than 200 economists who wrote a letter earlier this year describing the carbon price as the least expensive, most efficient way to lower emissions.
Poilievre is pushing for the other opposition parties to vote the government down and trigger what he calls a “carbon tax election.”
The recent decision by the NDP to break its political pact with the government makes an early election more likely, but there does not seem to be an interest from either the Bloc Québécois or the NDP to have it happen immediately.
Poilievre intends to bring a non-confidence motion against the government as early as this week but would likely need both the Bloc and NDP to support it.
Gould said she has no “crystal ball” over when or how often Poilievre might try to bring down the government
“I know that the end of the supply and confidence agreement makes things a bit different, but really all it does is returns us to a normal minority parliament,” she said. “And that means that we will work case-by-case, legislation-by-legislation with whichever party wants to work with us. I have already been in touch with all of the House leaders in the opposition parties and my job now is to make Parliament work for Canadians.”
She also insisted the government has listened to the concerns raised by Canadians, and received the message when the Liberals lost a Toronto byelection in June in seat the party had held since 1997.
“We certainly got the message from Toronto-St. Paul’s and have spent the summer reflecting on what that means and are coming back to Parliament, I think, very clearly focused on ensuring that Canadians are at the centre of everything that we do moving forward,” she said.
The Liberals are bracing, however, for the possibility of another blow Monday night, in a tight race to hold a Montreal seat in a byelection there. Voters in LaSalle—Émard—Verdun are casting ballots today to replace former justice minister David Lametti, who was removed from cabinet in 2023 and resigned as an MP in January.
The Conservatives and NDP are also in a tight race in Elmwood-Transcona, a Winnipeg seat that has mostly been held by the NDP over the last several decades.
There are several key bills making their way through the legislative process, including the online harms act and the NDP-endorsed pharmacare bill, which is currently in the Senate.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
GENEVA (AP) — Two former Olympic champions are in the race to be the next IOC president. So is a prince of a Middle East kingdom and the son of a former president. The global leaders of cycling, gymnastics and skiing also are in play.
The International Olympic Committee published a list Monday of seven would-be candidates who are set to run for election in March to succeed outgoing president Thomas Bach for the next eight years.
Just one woman, IOC executive board member Kirsty Coventry from Zimbabwe, entered the contest to lead an organization that has had only male presidents in its 130-year history. Eight of those presidents were from Europe and one from the United States.
Coventry and Sebastian Coe are two-time gold medalists in swimming and running, respectively. Prince Feisal al Hussein of Jordan is also on the IOC board.
Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr. of Spain is one of the four IOC vice presidents, whose father was president for 21 years until 2001.
David Lappartient is the president of cycling’s governing body, Morinari Watanabe leads gymnastics, and Johan Eliasch is president of the International Ski and Snowboard Federation. Coe is the president of track’s World Athletics.
All seven met a deadline of Sunday to send a letter of intent to Bach, who must leave the post next year after reaching the maximum 12 years in office. Bach declined at the Paris Olympics last month to seek to change IOC rules in order to stay in office longer.
A formal candidate list should be confirmed in January, three months before the March 18-21 election meeting in Greece, near the site of Ancient Olympia.
Only IOC members are eligible to stand as candidates, with votes cast by the rest of the 111-strong membership of the Olympic body.
The IOC is one of the most exclusive clubs in world sports. Its members are drawn from European and Middle East royalty, leaders of international sports bodies, former and current Olympic athletes, politicians and diplomats plus industrialists, including some billionaires like Eliasch.
It makes for one of the most discreet and quirky election campaigns in world sports, with members prevented from publicly endorsing their pick.
Campaign limits on the candidates include a block on publishing videos, organizing public meetings and taking part in public debates. The IOC will organize a closed-door meeting for candidates to address voters in January in its home city Lausanne, Switzerland.
The IOC top job ideally calls for deep knowledge of managing sports, understanding athletes’ needs and nimble skills in global politics.
The president oversees an organization that earns billions of dollars in revenue from broadcasting and sponsor deals for the Olympic Games and employs hundreds of staff in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Coe has been widely considered the most qualified candidate. A two-time Olympic champion in the 1,500-meters, he was later an elected lawmaker in Britain in the 1990s, led the 2012 London Olympics organizing committee and has presided at World Athletics for nine years.
However, he has potential legal hurdles regarding his ability to serve a full eight-year mandate. The IOC has an age limit of 70 for members, while Coe will be 68 on election day. The rules allow for a special exemption to remain for four more years, but that would mean a six-year presidency unless those limits are changed.
Coventry, who turned 41 Monday, also has government experience as the appointed sports minister in Zimbabwe.
The only woman ever to stand as an IOC presidential candidate was Anita DeFrantz, a former Olympic rower from the United States. She was eliminated in the first round of voting in a five-candidate election in 2001, which was won by Jacques Rogge.
Lappartient also is president of France’s national Olympic body and has carried strong momentum from the Paris Summer Games. He leads a French Alps project that was picked to host the 2030 Winter Games and was picked by Bach to oversee a long-term project sealed in Paris that will see Saudi Arabia hosting the Esports Olympic Games through 2035.
Eliasch is perhaps the most surprising candidate after being elected as an IOC member in Paris less than two months ago. The Swedish-British owner of the Head sportswear brand got 17 “no” votes, a notably high number in Olympic politics.
TORONTO – Ontario is proposing to further expand pharmacists’ scope of practice by adding to the list of minor ailments they can assess, allowing them to administer more vaccines and order some lab tests.
But while pharmacists see the proposal as an overdue solution to easing the burden on other aspects of the health-care system by leaning more on their professional expertise, doctors are raising concerns.
The government in early 2023 granted pharmacists the ability to assess and treat 13 minor ailments, including pink eye, hemorrhoids and urinary tract infections. In the fall of that year six more were added to the list, including acne, canker sores and yeast infections.
Now, the government is proposing to expand the list to include sore throat, calluses and corns, mild headaches, shingles, minor sleep disorders, fungal nail infections, swimmers’ ear, head lice, nasal congestion, dandruff, ringworm, jock itch, warts and dry eye.
As well, the Ministry of Health is looking for feedback on what lab tests and point-of-care tests might be required for pharmacists to order and perform as part of assessing and treating those conditions.
The government is also considering funding pharmacists to administer tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis, pneumococcal, shingles and RSV vaccines for adults, in addition to COVID-19 and flu vaccines. The province is proposing to allow pharmacy technicians to administer the same vaccines as pharmacists.
“Our government is focused on improving access to care in communities across the province and we have seen the success of our minor ailment program, connecting over 1 million people to treatment for minor ailments,” Hannah Jensen, a spokesperson for Health Minister Sylvia Jones, wrote in a statement.
Justin Bates, CEO of the Ontario Pharmacists Association, said the minor ailments program has been going well so far, and further expanding pharmacists’ scope can help avoid visits to family doctors and emergency rooms.
“We want to build health-care capacity through looking at pharmacies as a health-care hub and the pharmacists’ trusted relationship with their patients and to leverage that, because they are underutilized when it comes to what scope they can do,” he said.
But doctors are pushing back on the scope expansions.
“The bottom line here is that pharmacists are not doctors,” said Dr. Dominik Nowak, president of the Ontario Medical Association. “Doctors are trained for years and thousands of hours to diagnose and treat conditions.”
Nowak said that sometimes the symptoms that would seem to suggest one of those minor ailments are really a sign of a more serious condition, and it takes a doctor to recognize that.
“When I look at a lot of the minor ailments list, I think to myself, there’s nothing minor about many of these,” Nowak said.
“Many of these ailments rely on the patient … one, knowing the diagnosis themselves, so the patient’s own opinion. And last I heard, most of my patients haven’t been to medical school. And then two: it also relies on the patient’s own opinion about whether this is something minor or something serious.”
Bates said he has been “disappointed” at some of the messaging from doctors, and added that any notion that there is an increased risk to patient safety is “misinformation.”
“I want to support OMA and primary care, and I do – in hiring more doctors, solving some of their issues – but it shouldn’t come at the expense of other health professions gaining their … appropriate scope of practice,” he said.
“So it’s not a zero sum game here. We want to have physicians be comfortable with this, but … the way that some of these doctors are responding, it’s almost like hysteria.”
The government’s proposal on its regulatory registry is open for comment until Oct. 20.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
