A photograph of late temple president Hardeep Singh Nijjar is seen outside the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara Sahib, in Surrey, B.C., in 2023.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
India’s Ministry of External Affairs has dismissed a Globe and Mail report that said Canadian national-security officials were presented with evidence that Indian consular staff in Vancouver had supplied information to assist in the assassination of Canadian Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
The Globe reported that an Indian intelligence officer, Kanwaljit Singh, had worked as a visa official in the consulate while also gathering information about Mr. Nijjar from members of the Indian diaspora in Surrey, B.C., according to a law-enforcement source.
Periasamy Kumaran, a senior secretary in India’s Ministry of External Affairs, told reporters Monday in New Delhi that his country strongly denies any involvement in the 2023 slaying that frayed India’s relationship with Canada.
“India categorically rejects allegations of involvement in transnational violence or organized crime. These claims are baseless, politically motivated and unsupported by credible evidence,” he said.
Canada’s federal leaders, in India on the last day of a trade mission, did not respond to the revelations, which detail for the first time the role consular officials are accused of having played in the killing. Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand declined to comment and Prime Minister Mark Carney cancelled a planned news conference with reporters travelling with him.
Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand speaks with reporters in Mumbai, India, on Saturday.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
Investigators believe Mr. Singh was also an officer with India’s external intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing, or RAW, the law-enforcement source said. A second source, who works in national security, didn’t identify Mr. Singh by name, but confirmed that CSIS was monitoring an undercover RAW agent posted to the consulate who was also working as a visa officer.
Mr. Singh worked with Manish, who goes by one name and was Vancouver’s consul-general at the time, both sources said. Manish was officially reassigned to be India’s high commissioner to Cyprus in July, 2023 – three weeks after Mr. Nijjar was killed – and left Vancouver in May, 2024.
Mr. Nijjar was gunned down in the parking lot of his gurdwara in Surrey – an attack that former prime minister Justin Trudeau told Parliament in September, 2023, was linked to agents of India. But until now, the alleged role of consular officials was not known publicly.
Both sources said authorities believe the information collected at the consulate was shared with Vikash Yadav, another RAW officer in New Delhi, and passed on to the Lawrence Bishnoi organized crime group, a transnational gang blamed for a rash of extortions and violence in Canada. Mr. Yadav is wanted by the FBI in the U.S. for a foiled plot to kill another Sikh activist.
The Globe is not identifying the sources because they were not authorized to share details of the investigation. Their information is based on the RCMP’s investigation and intelligence from Canada’s spy service and its allies in the United States and Britain.
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Hours after The Globe’s story was published, Mr. Kumaran said his government believes such allegations should be addressed in court, “not through public or politicized narratives.”
He added that the Canadian criminal case of Mr. Nijjar’s death should be “allowed to proceed through established legal processes without public commentary.”
Sikh groups called for protests outside India’s Vancouver consulate on Tuesday. The World Sikh Organization of Canada said it was “deeply disturbed” by the report.
Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, director of Sikhs of Justice and the intended target of the failed U.S. plot, called on the Carney government to file criminal charges and begin extradition proceedings against Indian officials if it has evidence they were involved in Mr. Nijjar’s killing.
The Globe’s sources said investigators in the Nijjar case wanted to arrest Indian officials, but believed diplomatic immunity would make prosecution impossible. American officials have indicted Mr. Yadav, but India says he can’t face trial in the U.S. because he’s already dealing with another criminal matter in New Delhi – an alleged extortion case linked to India’s Bishnoi gang.
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Both Mr. Pannun and Mr. Nijjar were key figures in organizing a referendum urging the creation of a separate Sikh homeland out of what is now the Indian state of Punjab.
The Indian government long claimed, often without evidence, Mr. Nijjar was a terrorist, but Ottawa’s reluctance to arrest and extradite him frustrated New Delhi.
Moninder Singh, another activist who campaigned with Mr. Nijjar and is now the leader of the Sikh Federation of Canada, said Mr. Carney’s government appears to be working at cross purposes: approaching India for closer trade and security ties while also acknowledging it still poses a foreign interference threat.
“It’s shameful that you would put trade before Canadian lives,” Moninder Singh said.
Ms. Anand, speaking to reporters in New Delhi at the end of the trade mission to India, declined to comment on The Globe’s report, but distanced herself from a senior Canadian government official who last week told reporters in a background briefing that India had ceased all foreign interference in Canada.
Four Indian citizens, who had come to Canada on temporary visas, have been charged in the slaying. Karanpreet Singh, Karan Brar, Kamalpreet Singh and Amandeep Singh, all in their 20s, are in jail awaiting trial in B.C. Supreme Court on charges of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.
With a report from Stephanie Chambers