But almost every Indian mention of Nijjar is very explicit about noting that he is considered a terrorist by the Indian government. A recent column in the Times of India, for one, called him a “terrorist fugitive from India who emigrated to Canada.” In fact, when Trudeau made his abortive trip to India in 2018, the then chief minister of Punjab Amarinder Singh made a point of handing Trudeau a list of “Khalistani operatives” in Canada. As an Indian Express story noted this week, Nijjar was one of the names.
In just the last week, Nijjar’s lawyer, Gurpatwant Singh Pannu, recorded a viral video urging Indo-Canadian Hindus to “leave Canada.” “You not only support India, but you are also supporting the suppression of speech and expression of pro-Khalistan Sikhs,” he said. When Indian media reported on the video, they were issued a warning by the Indian Ministry of Information alleging that Pannu is also considered a terrorist, and that giving him a “platform” risked disturbing “public order.”
It’s nothing new that the government of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi sees Canada as a safe harbour for extremist Khalistanis; Sikhs who seek an independent ethnostate in what is now the Indian state of Punjab. To date, the worst mass-murder in Canadian history remains the 1985 Air India Bombing, a terrorist attack organized by Khalistani extremists based out of British Columbia. And according to the Modi government, Canada is doing next to nothing to prevent any future violence from erupting out of its Sikh expat communities.
