Written & Edited By : Aditi Mishra
23 September 2023 ( New Delhi ) : Ottawa has failed to offer convincing proof that India was responsible for the murder of terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar of the Khalistan Tiger Force, but Canadian intelligence continues to promote the idea that he was the upright and devout leader of the Guru Nanak Gurudwara in Surrey, Canada. According to a dossier created by Indian intelligence services, he intimidated Raghbir Singh Nijjar, the former president of the Sikh temple, into accepting his threat to lead the organization. According to the dossier, Gurdeep Singh, alias Deepa Heranwala, a terrorist with the Khalistan Commando Force (KCF), who was responsible for over 200 murders in Punjab between the late 1980s and the early 1990s, had a longtime friend in Nijjar. He was introduced to criminality by Gurnek Singh, also known as Neka, a different gang leader.
According to the dossier, Nijjar fled to Canada in 1996 using a false passport using the name “Ravi Sharma” and maintained a low profile as a truck driver and a plumber. According to the report, he made contact with KTF Chief Jagtar Singh Tara, who lives in Pakistan, and traveled there in April 2012 while posing as a member of the Baisakhi jatha. Tara radicalized him, and the Pakistani spy service Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) nurtured him, teaching him how to use weapons and explosives in 2012 and 2013. The dossier even asserts that Tara sent Harjot Singh Birring, who is located in the US, to Canada in 2013 to instruct Nijjar in the use of a handheld GPS device.
The dossier claims that in 2014, Nijjar gave money to another Canadian-based Sikh radical, Surjit Singh Kohli, who in turn gave money to the former terrorist of the Babbar Khalsa International, Parminder Singh aka Kala, to buy a weapon to kill Shiv Sena leader Sanjeev Ghanouli and Baba Piara Singh Bhaniarawala, claiming that both were anti-Panthalamic.
In order to provide Mandeep Singh Dhaliwal with training on the use of AK-47 assault weapons, sniper rifles, and pistols, Nijjar organized an armaments training camp in Mission Hills, British Columbia, Canada, in December 2015. He sent Dhaliwal to Punjab in January 2016 to assassinate Shiv Sena officials and incite racial tensions in the region, but the terrorist was apprehended by Punjab Police in June of that same year.
According to the dossier, Nijjar trained a group of four KTF members who carried out the targeted assassinations and kidnappings in 2020 and 2021 alongside gangster-turned-terrorist Arshdeep Singh Dala. According to the dossier, when three members of the module were detained, they divulged Nijjar and Dala’s identities.
In September 2021, three KTF members from Moga—Kanwarpal Singh, Kulwinder Singh, and Kamalpreet Singh—partook in a plot to assassinate SSP Moga Harmanbir Singh Gill and two inspectors of the criminal investigative agency in the Moga district on the orders of Nijjar and Dala.
According to the dossier, Haryana Police detained three members of a group responsible for contract killings in Punjab on February 19, 2022, at the request of KTF and the International Sikh Youth Federation (ISYF).
According to the dossier, despite Nijjar being named a terrorist by the Home Ministry on July 1, 2020, and receiving a financial award of Rs. 10 lakh from the National Investigation Agency on July 22, 2022, the KTF leader continued to operate freely in Canada.
According to those with knowledge of the situation, India tried to persuade Ottawa to take action against him. There were ten FIRs filed against Nijjar in India, and New Delhi sought to pursue the cases.
