Police in Canada warned a prominent Sikh activist of “credible threat” to his family’s life, days before the prime minister, Mark Carney, visits India in search of new trade deals.
Moninder Singh, who heads the Sikh Federation of Canada, said officers visited his home on Sunday, to warn him that a confidential police informant had passed information suggesting he and his family were at risk.
In 2023, the former prime minister Justin Trudeau accused India of orchestrating the high-profile assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, another Sikh activist and Canadian citizen. Canada’s federal police and spy agency later repeated the accusations.
Singh, a close friend of Nijjar, said he believed the Indian government was behind the most recent threat.
In a recording of the police warning, shared with the Guardian, an officer tells Singh “it kills me to know you’re in this position” and appears to agree with the activist’s assessment that the threat stemmed from his vocal criticism of India.
“I want everyone to know how a father or a husband would feel in a situation like this. But as an activist, as a leader in the community, I’m not going to be thwarted by this. I’m not going to be silent over this. Silence is what they want,” Singh said.
Singh has been threatened before but said this was the first time his wife and two children had been threatened too. “If people like me start going silent, then, you know, these people that are being extorted, or other members of our community that are actually in line to be assassinated or have violence inflicted on them, then what would happen to them?”
This story was originally published in theguardian.com. Read the full story here.
