File picture of Sikh separatist leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun
| Photo Credit: AP

Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, the U.S.-based pro-Khalistan attorney, has backed Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s take on Sikhs in India, saying that Mr. Gandhi “justified SFJ’s global Khalistan Referendum campaign”.

Mr. Pannun is the general counsel to Sikhs for Justice (SFJ), a group based in the U.S.

In his statement released Wednesday (September 11, 2024) — which The Hindu has seen — Mr. Pannun said that Mr. Gandhi’s quip on the “existential threat to Sikhs in India” was bold and historically accurate.

Mr. Pannun referred to Mr. Gandhi’s address to a gathering of Indian Americans in in Herndon, a Virginia suburb of Washington D.C., on Monday (September 9, 2024), in which the Congress leader accused the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) of considering some religions, languages, and communities of being inferior to others and said that the fight in India is about this and not about politics.

“While addressing the gathering in Washington D.C. where many pro Khalistan Sikhs were in attendance, Rahul Gandhi justified SFJ’s global Khalistan Referendum campaign when he stated: ‘Fight in India is whether a Sikh will be allowed to wear turban and kada, go to gurudwara,’” reads Mr. Pannun’s statement.

“Rahul’s statement on “existential threat to Sikhs in India” is not only bold and pioneering but is also firmly grounded in the factual history of what Sikhs have been facing under successive regimes in India since 1947 and also corroborates SFI’s stance on the justification for Punjab Independence Referendum to establish Sikh homeland Khalistan,” he added.

Mr. Pannun, wanted in India on terror charges, holds dual citizenship of the U.S. and Canada. In November last year, U.S. federal prosecutors charged Indian national Nikhil Gupta of working with an Indian government employee in the foiled plot to kill Pannun in New York.

Following the allegations, India appointed a high-level inquiry committee to look into the inputs provided by the U.S. on the plot.

New Delhi:

The ban on pro-Khalistan group Sikhs For Justice (SFJ), founded by US-based lawyer Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, has been extended by the Centre for five years for its relentless anti-India activities.
In a notification issued on Tuesday, the Union Home Ministry said SFJ was declared a banned organisation five years ago under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act for its anti-national activities.

The notification said the Central government is of the opinion that SFJ continues to indulge in activities which are prejudicial to the integrity and security of the country and is involved in anti-national and subversive activities in Punjab and elsewhere, intended to disrupt the sovereignty and territorial integrity of India.

It said SFJ is in close touch with militant outfits and activists, and is supporting a violent form of extremism and militancy in Punjab and elsewhere to carve out a sovereign Khalistan out of territory of India.

The pro-Khalistan separatist group is encouraging and aiding the activities for the secession of a part of the Indian territory and supporting separatist groups fighting for this purpose in India and elsewhere by indulging in activities and articulations intended to disrupt the sovereignty and territorial integrity of India.

The Home Ministry said the government feels that if the unlawful activities of SFJ are not curbed and controlled immediately, it is likely to escalate its subversive activities including attempts to carve out a Khalistan nation out of the territory of India by destabilising the government established by law.

The SFJ continues to advocate the secession of Punjab from India and the formation of Khalistan, it continues to propagate anti-national and separatist sentiments prejudicial to the territorial integrity and security of the country and escalates secessionist movements, and support militancy and incite violence in the country, the notification said.

“Now, therefore, in exercise of the powers conferred by sub-sections (1) and (3) of section 3 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 (37 of 1967), the central government hereby extends the declaration of the Sikhs For Justice as an unlawful association and directs that this notification shall, subject to any order that may be made under section 4 of the said Act, have effect for a further period of five years from 10th day of July, 2024,” it said.

SFJ was founded by US-based Pannun, who was also declared as a terrorist by the government. It had also carried out a campaign for a referendum for a separate Khalistan about three years ago.

Pannun, who holds dual citizenship of the US and Canada, is wanted in India on terror charges.

Last month, an Indian national, Nikhil Gupta, was extradited to the US for his alleged involvement in the plot to kill Pannun on American soil.

The group’s primary objective is to establish an “independent and sovereign country” in Punjab. It openly espouses the cause of Khalistan and in that process challenges the sovereignty and territorial integrity of India, an official said.

SFJ was first declared a banned organisation under the UAPA in 2019. 

A mural features the image of late Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was slain on the grounds of the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara temple in June 2023, in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada on September 18, 2023.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh independence advocate whose killing two months ago is at the centre of a widening breach between India and Canada, was called a human rights activist by Sikh organisations and a criminal by India’s Government.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on September 18 that his government was investigating “credible allegations” that Indian Government agents were linked to the June 18 slaying, when Nijjar was gunned down outside a Sikh cultural centre in Surrey, British Columbia.

India has denied any role in the killing, calling the allegations absurd.

Nijjar, 45 when he died, was a prominent member of a movement to create an independent Sikh homeland known as Khalistan, and was organising an unofficial referendum among the Sikh diaspora with the organisation Sikhs For Justice.

He also owned a plumbing business and served as president of a Sikh temple or gurdwara in suburban Vancouver, where banners hung with his face promoting the referendum on September 19. In a 2016 interview with the Vancouver Sun he responded dismissively to reports in Indian media that he was suspected of leading a terrorist cell.

“This is garbage — all the allegations. I am living here 20 years, right? Look at my record. There is nothing. I am a hard worker. I own my own business in the plumbing,” Nijjar told the newspaper. At the time, he said he was too busy to take part in diaspora politics.

Following his death, the World Sikh Organisation of Canada called Nijjar an outspoken supporter of Khalistan who “often led peaceful protests against the violation of human rights actively taking place in India and in support of Khalistan”.

Nijjar was a wanted man in India, which has for years seen Sikh separatists abroad as a security threat.

In 2016, Indian media reported that Nijjar was suspected of masterminding a bombing in the Sikh-majority State of Punjab and training terrorists in a small city southeast of Vancouver. He denied the allegations.

In 2020, Indian authorities claimed Nijjar was a member of a banned militant group and designated him a terrorist. That year, they also filed a criminal case against him as farmers, many from Punjab, camped out on the edges of New Delhi to protest controversial agriculture laws. The Indian Government initially tried to discredit the protests by associating them with Sikh separatists, filing a number of such cases against Sikh activists in India and abroad.

Last year, Indian authorities accused Nijjar of involvement in an alleged attack on a Hindu priest in India and announced a reward of about $16,000 for information leading to his arrest.

The modern Sikh independence movement reaches back to the 1940s but eventually became an armed insurgency that shook the country in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1984, then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ordered a raid to capture armed separatists taking refuge in Sikhism’s holiest shrine.

The raid killed hundreds of people, and two of Gandhi’s Sikh bodyguards assassinated her shortly after. In response, anti-Sikh riots took place across India in which members of the minority were dragged out of their homes and killed. The insurgency was eventually suppressed in a crackdown during which thousands of people were killed, but the goal of Sikh independence still has support among some in northern India and in the Sikh diaspora.

More recently, the Hindu nationalist-led government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has cracked down on both non-Hindu rights movements and dissidents.

Sikh diaspora activism has been a source of tension between India and Canada for years. Canada has the largest population of Sikhs outside India, and India has repeatedly accused it of tolerating “terrorists and extremists”.

Canadian police said Nijjar was shot as he was leaving the parking lot of the Sikh temple where he served as president in British Columbia. He suffered multiple gunshot wounds and died at the scene.

After the killing, a lawyer and spokesperson for Sikhs For Justice, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, said Nijjar had been a target of threats because of his activism. His killing was the second in two years of a prominent member of the Sikh community in Canada.

Mr. Pannun said he had spoken to Nijjar by phone the day before he was killed and that Nijjar had told him that Canadian intelligence had warned him that his life was at risk.

Nearly a week after Nijjar’s slaying, about 200 protesters from Canada’s Sikh community gathered in front of the Indian Consulate in Vancouver to demonstrate. Many of the protesters were convinced that Nijjar’s killing was linked to his calls for an independent Sikh state.

“He was a loving man, a hard-working man, a family man,” said Gurkeerat Singh, one of the protesters.

On September 18, Moninder Singh, a spokesperson for the British Columbia Sikh Gurdwara Council, told Canada’s CTV that the wave of support for Nijjar seen after his death was an indication of how he was seen in the community.

“It shook the community across the entire world, including in Punjab,” Mr. Singh said.
“The community is shattered. There are very, very high emotions,” Sukh Dhaliwal, a member of Parliament who represents Surrey, said days after the killing.