Sikh activist Inderjeet Singh Gosal in Brampton, Ont., in February, 2024. Mr. Gosal was arrested Sept. 19 after a traffic stop in Oshawa. The OPP said he and two others in the vehicle were each charged with more than 10 firearm-related offences.Christopher Katsarov/The Globe and Mail
A prominent advocate for a Sikh homeland in India was arrested on firearm charges in Ontario earlier this month, more than two years after his predecessor’s killing led to a significant rift in Canadian-Indian relations.
The arrest happened a day after Canada’s national security adviser met with her Indian counterpart in New Delhi as part of an effort to reset dealings between the two countries.
The former Indian high commissioner to Canada is hailing the arrest as an example of a constructive shift in Ottawa-New Delhi relations. The arrest was widely covered by English-language Indian news outlets.
However, the federal government says it had nothing to do with the arrest, which was made by the Ontario Provincial Police.
Inderjeet Singh Gosal of Caledon, Ont., was arrested Sept. 19 after a traffic stop in Oshawa, Ont. The OPP said Mr. Gosal and two others in the vehicle were each charged with more than 10 firearm-related offences, including possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose, careless use of a firearm and carrying a concealed weapon.
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A day earlier, Canadian national intelligence and security adviser Nathalie Drouin had met in New Delhi with her Indian counterpart, Ajit Doval, during a visit that she framed as a re-establishment of communication channels.
Sanjay Kumar Verma, who served as India’s high commissioner to Canada between 2022 and 2024, wrote an article for news outlet India Narrative saying the Drouin-Doval national security adviser, or NSA, meeting marked Canada and India’s efforts to construct a “new normal, grounded in reciprocity, rules, and operational trust.”
Mr. Verma wrote that the arrest of Mr. Gosal “shortly after the NSA meeting illustrates this emerging new normal.”
He added: “Gosal’s detention on firearms charges followed years of Indian complaints about reactive Canadian enforcement.”
Mr. Gosal, a Canadian, is a member of Sikhs for Justice, a group that advocates for the creation of Khalistan, a separate Sikh homeland in India’s Punjab region. He took over responsibility for organizing an unofficial referendum on the issue among the Sikh diaspora from fellow activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, according to Sikhs for Justice general counsel Gurpatwant Singh Pannun.
Mr. Nijjar was shot dead in June, 2023, in Surrey, B.C., a slaying that then-prime-minister Justin Trudeau publicly alleged was the work of the Indian government. India denied the accusation, but the charge led to a serious rupture in relations that saw dozens of Canadian diplomats leave India and later, in 2024, the expulsion of Indian diplomats from Canada.
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India has long complained that Canada provides a haven for Khalistan advocates. Canada is home to about 770,000 who reported Sikhism as their religion in the most recent census. A small but influential number of these Sikhs support the idea of Khalistan. The Canadian government has frequently responded to India’s complaints by pointing to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and noting that freedom of expression is protected in Canada.
Reached for comment, Mr. Gosal said he could not talk about the arrest because it’s before the court. However, he said that prior to this, the RCMP had twice warned him his life was in danger and offered him protection, which he had declined because he did not want to abandon work on the referendum.
A spokesman for federal Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree said Ottawa had nothing to do with Mr. Gosal’s arrest.
“The federal government does not get involved in the operational activities of police services,” Simon Lafortune, press secretary for Mr. Anandasangaree, said in an e-mailed statement.
The OPP said in a Sept. 24 statement posted on social media that charges against the three men resulting from the traffic stop also included possession of a firearm obtained by crime, and that no further information would be released about the traffic stop to “protect the integrity of the investigation.”
The three men arrested all work on the Khalistan referendum campaign and were heading to Ottawa with banners and signs for the Nov. 23 vote, according to Mr. Pannun and Mr. Gosal. Others charged include Jagdeep Singh of Pickville, N.Y., the OPP said.
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Sikhs for Justice is currently banned in India by New Delhi for what it considers anti-Indian activities.
Mr. Verma, the former envoy, said in his article that for India, Mr. Gosal’s arrest “was a sign that structured engagement can yield results.”
The incident “underscored that without political interference, logical enforcement can proceed within Canada’s own legal framework,” Mr. Verma wrote.
Mike McDonell, a retired RCMP assistant commissioner and OPP superintendent, said he can’t speak to the specifics of the Gosal arrest.
But he said it is standard operating procedure to use traffic stops to make arrests in cases around national security, drug dealing and organized crime.
“As a critical operations commander, you take the suspects away from their residences, which are extremely high-risk. You get them out of their residences and then you take them down,” he said. “That is tactically much safer.”
Mr. McDonell said these types of operations would be well planned out and co-ordinated with the RCMP and Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
A year after Mr. Trudeau accused India of playing a role in the Nijjar slaying, Canada-India relations were further fractured in October, 2024, when RCMP announced they had clear evidence Indian government agents had been linked to homicides, extortions and other violent criminal activities in Canada. Ottawa followed up by expelling Mr. Verma, then India’s high commissioner, and five other diplomats.
Canadian authorities continue to investigate alleged transnational repression targeting Sikh activists domestically, with four Indian nationals now facing charges in the Nijjar case.