1) (Updated) RCMP warn of widespread violence, crime linked to India

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press

By Laura Osman, October 14, 2024

RCMP Commissioner Michael Duheme is warning of widespread violence, homicides and a public security threat linked to agents of the Indian government. 

A senior government official with knowledge of the situation says Canada has expelled six Indian diplomats, including the high commissioner, as a result.

RCMP took the extraordinary step of warning the public after confronting Indian government officials over the weekend. 

Duheme says the RCMP has charged “a significant number” of people with direct involvement in homicides, extortions and other criminal acts of violence over the past few years and is aware of more than a dozen threats to members of the south Asian community and the pro-Khalistan movement. 

Still, he says the activities have continued and pose a serious threat to public safety in Canada.

New Delhi is rejecting the investigations, and calls the RCMP’s claims preposterous.

2) (Updated) Allegations of murder, extortion, coercion by India spark diplomatic retaliations

Courte Canadian Press

By Laura Osman and Dylan Robertson, October 14, 2024

Accusations of widespread murder, extortion and coercion across Canada linked to agents of the government of India sparked an escalation of already strained diplomatic tensions Monday, as each country expelled six diplomats.

Canada declared six Indian diplomats, including the high commissioner, persona non grata after RCMP and other government officials told India its diplomats were persons of interest in several investigationsinto violent crimes in Canada. 

India swiftly retaliated by ordering six Canadian diplomats to leave the country by Saturday.

The RCMP tells The Canadian Press it is investigating three homicides across Canada over the last two years with possible links to India, but would not clarify if that includes the high-profile killing of pro-Khalistan activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar last year. 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said New Delhi has tried to undermine Canadian institutions instead of helping resolve these criminal cases.

“No country, particularly not a democracy that upholds the rule of law, can accept this fundamental violation of its sovereignty,” he told reporters on Parliament Hill.

“We will never tolerate the involvement of a foreign government threatening and killing Canadian citizens on Canadian soil.”

RCMP Commissioner Michael Duheme told a news conference in Ottawa that the force decided to take the “extraordinary” step of warning the public after Indian government officials refused to co-operate in their investigation of the threats.

“It’s not our normal process to publicly disclose information about ongoing investigations in an effort to preserve their integrity,” Duheme told reporters. “However, we feel it is necessary to do so at this time due the significant threat to public safety in our country.”

Duheme said Canadian law enforcement, including the RCMP, have investigated and charged people in homicides, extortions and other criminal acts. He added there have been well over a dozen credible and imminent threats that have resulted in police warning members of the South Asian community, notably the pro-Khalistan movement.

India is a staunch opponent to the Khalistan separatist movement, in which some Sikhs advocate for an independent state called Khalistan to be carved out of Indian territory.

India says the prospect is unconstitutional and threatens the country’s national security. Ottawa has long stressed that it upholds India’s territorial integrity but won’t crack down on freedom of expression in Canada.

The RCMP commissioner said Monday that investigations revealed that Indian diplomats and consular officials based in Canada leveraged their official positions to engage in clandestine activities, including collecting information for the government of India, either directly or through proxies.

“Evidence also shows that a wide variety of entities in Canada and abroad have been used by agents of the government of India to collect information,” Duheme said, including some people and businesses that were allegedly coerced and threatened into providing information used to make threats.

In February 2024, a unit was formed to investigate the threats.

“The team has learned a significant amount of information about the breadth and depth of criminal activity orchestrated by agents of the government of India and consequential threats to the safety and security of Canadians and individuals living in Canada,” Duheme said.

“Despite law enforcement action, the harm has continued, posing a serious threat to our public safety.”

RCMP assistant commissioner Brigitte Gauvin said the service has so far arrested and charged eight people with the homicide cases, and 22 more people have been charged with extortion.

The alleged crimes of extortion have taken place across Canada, but mainly in B.C., Ontario and Alberta.   

Duheme said the force felt compelled to confront the government of India and to inform the public about its findings, but attempts to have discussions with Indian law enforcement were unsuccessful, he added.

Canada asked New Delhi to waive diplomatic immunity for the Indian officials in Canada, which would have allowed the RCMP to interview them, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly said Monday. 

When India refused, Canada expelled the diplomats.

New Delhi rejected the allegations, and called the Canadian government’s claims preposterous. India’s ministry of external affairs said it had been informed Sunday that some of its diplomats were “persons of interest” in an ongoing investigation including its high commissioner, a title for an ambassador within Commonwealth countries.

The ministry claimed that the Canadian government has not shared a “shred of evidence” since Trudeau rose in the House of Commons in September 2023 to announce that investigators had credible intelligence linking India’s government to the shooting death of Nijjar.

Relations between the two countries have been strained since.

“The violence actually increased following the allegations a year ago,” Joly said. She has reached out to Canada’s peers in the Five Eyes intelligence alliance.

Trudeau had a brief exchange with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the ASEAN summit in Laos last week. Trudeau said Monday that he stressed to Modi the seriousness of the situation, and that Canada needs New Delhi’s co-operation in the criminal probes.

Canada sent senior security officials to meet their Indian counterparts in Singapore this past weekend “to share RCMP evidence which concluded six agents of the government of India are persons of interest in criminal activities,” Trudeau said.

“The government of India made a fundamental error in thinking that they could engage in supporting criminal activity against Canadians here on Canadian soil, whether it be murders or extortion or other violent acts,” he said.

India said Monday that it was withdrawing six of its diplomats, including its high commissioner in Canada. But Canada said India’s statement only came after Ottawa had declared high commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma and five other diplomats persona non grata.

“Canada has done what India has long been asking for,” Stewart Wheeler, Canada’s acting high commissioner in India, told local media in that country.

“Canada has provided credible, irrefutable evidence of ties between agents of the government of India and a murder of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil.”

He and his colleagues have been given until next Saturday to leave India.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre called the RCMP’s allegations “extremely concerning,” and levied his own accusations at Trudeau and his government for not taking national security and foreign interference seriously.

“Because of that, Canada has become a playground for these activities,” Poilievre said in a statement Monday.

The federal NDP called for sanctions against India and said in a statement Monday that Canada must “commit to pursuing the most severe consequences for anyone found to have participated in organized criminal activity on Canadian soil.” 

B.C. Premier David Eby, who is now in an election campaign, said Monday that he is “profoundly disturbed” by the RCMP’s revelations, which he called “unprecedented.”

He said Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland and Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc assured him that “those involved are held responsible.”

— With files from Sidhartha Banerjee and Darryl Greer 

3) (Updated) Canada and U.S. list Samidoun as terrorist group, U.S. adds Canadian to terror list

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press

By Dylan Robertson, Oct. 15, 2024.

Canada listed the pro-Palestinian group Samidoun as a terrorist entity Tuesday, a week after Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc asked national security advisers for an expedited review of the organization.

The move was announced alongside decisions by the United States to add both Samidoun and a Canadian citizen affiliated with the group to its counterterrorism list.

Samidoun is also known as the Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, and Ottawa says it “has close links with and advances the interests of” another group that Canada already lists as a terrorist entity, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

LeBlanc said Tuesday that Samidoun had been listed under the Criminal Code, banning people from donating or providing property to the group.

In a regulatory notice, Ottawa said Samidoun’s property “can be the subject of seizure/restraint and/or forfeiture” while banks must bar access to funds.

The U.S. designations come under an executive order that allows the government to block the assets of foreign individuals and entities that have committed acts of terrorism or pose a significant risk of doing so.

The U.S. Treasury Department also listed Canadian citizen Khaled Barakat as an affiliate of a terrorist group, saying he is part of the Popular Front’s leadership and fundraising.

In statements, the U.S. departments of Treasury and State both refer to Samidoun as a “sham charity” that serves only as a fundraiser for the Popular Front.

American officials list Samidoun as being headquartered in Vancouver, and they say the group is masquerading as a humanitarian support charity that actually supports terrorism against Israel.

Samidoun did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Jewish groups praised the move Tuesday, with B’nai Brith calling it “a decisive blow against the forces of hate and extremism.”

Last week, Vancouver police launched a criminal investigation into a rally Samidoun organized that the force said included speakers who expressed “solidarity with terrorist groups.”

The Oct. 7 demonstration marked the anniversary of the Hamas attacks on Israel, and included a masked speaker who told the crowd “we are Hezbollah and we are Hamas.” She also led cries of “death to Canada, death to the United States and death to Israel.”

Canada for decades has listed both Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist entities.

Samidoun director Charlotte Kates was also arrested by Vancouver police last year in a hate crime investigation, then released on an undertaking to appear in court. Kates was previously arrested after praising the Oct. 7 attack as “heroic and brave” in a speech at a rally.

Samidoun’s website says Kates and Barakat are married.

The Conservatives called last week for Samidoun to be listed as a terrorist entity, noting its ties to the Popular Front as well as calls at its rallies for the destruction of Israel.

The Liberals responded that officials need to review any terrorist listing, but say they had flagged Samidoun as requiring “an urgent review” by officials while accusing the organization of spreading hate.

4) Sikh groups calls for Indian consulates to be shut down in Vancouver, Toronto

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press

By Brenna Owen, Oct. 15, 2024

Representatives of a British Columbia Sikh temple whose president was shot dead last year, as well as the Sikh independence group he was involved in, say their communities won’t feel safe until India’s consulates in Vancouver and Toronto are shut down.

That’s after the Canadian government expelled six Indian diplomats, including the high commissioner, and the RCMP announced on Monday it had evidence of their alleged involvement in crimes including homicide and extortion targeting the so-called Khalistan independence movement.

The Canadian government has previously said credible intelligence links India’s government to the killing in June last year of activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, leader of the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in Surrey, B.C., where community members have held a news conference.

Gurkeerat Singh, a spokesman for the gurdwara, says “the safety and the security of Sikhs will still be in question” unless India’s consulates are shut down.

India has denied the police allegations that its diplomats coercively collected information on South Asian Canadians, then passed that information on to criminals who took violent action.

Jatinder Singh Grewal, a member of the advocacy group Sikhs for Justice, says Canada previously expelled an Indian diplomat in September last year and since then the RCMP has indicated the threat to Sikhs in Canada has increased.

“We have a strong belief that the threat will still not subside. It will increase, because India is taking the right to self-determination of Punjab very seriously and wishes to quell it,” he told Tuesday’s press conference, which he joined via video link.

“These houses of terror, they need to be shut down,” he said of the consulates.

Grewal referred to the expulsion last year of Pavan Kumar Rai, a diplomatic agent who headed an Indian intelligence agency based in Ottawa.

On Monday, the government announced it was expelling six more diplomats, including Sanjay Kumar Verma, because of the criminal accusations. The RCMP said Monday there were six Indian diplomats they sought to question about the violent activities in Canada, and those six are the ones Canada expelled.

India responded by expelling six Canadian diplomats.

In September 2023, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that Canadian intelligence services were investigating a potential link between India’s government and Nijjar’s killing. Four Indian nationals have since been charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy.

Grewal said the people who allegedly pulled the trigger are “merely tools,” and the real issue was who collected information on Sikhs in Canada and allegedly shared that information with criminals to threaten and harm Sikh community members.

“The RCMP laid it out quite clearly, that Indian diplomats in Canada are actively monitoring, looking at the behaviour, patterns and activities of pro-Khalistani Sikhs, and then sharing that information with individuals back in India,” he said.

RCMP Commissioner Michael Duheme said Monday that investigations revealed that Indian diplomats and consular officials based in Canada had allegedly leveraged their official positions to engage in clandestine activities, including collecting information for the government of India, either directly or through proxies.

The RCMP told The Canadian Press it was investigating three homicides across the country over the last two years with possible links to India, but the Mounties would not clarify whether those include Nijjar’s killing.

Grewal said shutting down India’s consulates in Toronto and Vancouver would remove the shield afforded by diplomatic positions.

“We can’t allow this to continue because it endangers Canadian safety and Canadian sovereignty,” he said..

5) (Updated) House committee to summon RCMP, ministers over allegations of Indian interference

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press

By David Baxter, October 18, 2024

The head of the RCMP and Canada’s ministers of foreign affairs and public safety will be summoned to testify at a House of Commons committee about the bombshell allegations made this week about Indian state-sponsored interference in Canada.

The national security committee agreed Friday to call RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme along with Mélanie Joly and Dominic LeBlanc as part of six meetings set aside for the study.

NDP MP Alistair MacGregor put forward the motion days after Canada expelled six Indian diplomats amid allegations they worked with criminal organizations to target Sikh separatists in Canada. In a news conference on Monday Duheme said the national police force had launched a special investigative unit last February to investigate multiple cases of extortion, coercion and violence, including murder that were linked to agents of the Indian government.

In more than a dozen cases Canadian citizens were warned about threats to their personal safety and Duheme said the national police force was speaking out to try and disrupt what it deemed a serious threat to public safety.

India has denied the allegations and expelled six Canadian diplomats from New Delhi following Canada’s decision to expel India’s high commissioner and five other diplomats.

“For the RCMP, indeed for any police force that is conducting an active investigation, to come out with such explosive revelations I think underscores just how serious this is,” MacGregor told the committee.

“The RCMP made a point that they were doing this because some individuals in Canada had their lives directly in danger and the threat reached such a level they felt compelled to ignore the traditional way of going through the judicial process and make these accusations public.”

Canada’s allegations were followed Thursday by charges announced by the U.S. Justice Department against an Indian government employee who is accused in an alleged foiled plot to kill a Sikh separatist leader living in New York City.

U.S. authorities say Vikash Yadav directed the New York plot from India. He faces murder-for-hire charges in a planned killing that prosecutors have previously said was meant to precede a string of other politically motivated murders in the United States and Canada.

The Indian government didn’t immediately provide comment on the U.S. charge.

The House committee Friday also voted to call Brampton mayor Patrick Brown to testify, as well as other candidates from the 2022 Conservative leadership contest. A report released in June by the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) contains a redacted paragraph that details alleged Indian interference in a Conservative leadership contest. A specific year is not mentioned.

The Conservatives have said they have been given no information about any such interference. 

The committee is also now considering a second NDP motion calling for all party leaders to apply for a top-secret security clearance within 30 days, along with a Conservative amendment to demand Prime Minister Justin Trudeau release the names of parliamentarians listed in top-secret documents as being engaged in or at-risk of foreign interference.

At the foreign interference inquiry this week Trudeau said Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre refused to get the clearance that would allow him access the names of Conservatives from those documents, while Poilievre accused Trudeau of lying and demanded he make all the names public.

Trudeau acknowledged the documents include the names of members of other parties, including the Liberals, but said if Poilievre doesn’t get the clearance that is needed to know who is at risk he can’t take any steps to prevent or limit the impact.

Manitoba Conservative MP Raquel Dancho told the committee that Poilievre getting a briefing would be a “gag order” against criticizing the government on foreign interference.

“We can put this to bed, it’s rapidly devolving into some McCarthy witch-hunt as a result of the prime minister’s actions and we can clear this up today by releasing the names,” Dancho said. 

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May said releasing the names is dangerous. May said she has read the unredacted NSICOP report and told the committee that no sitting MP is listed as a witting participant in foreign interference, but some are described as “semi-witting.”

May added that she originally planned to share how many people are considered “semi-witting,” but was told by security officials that could compromise intelligence sources.

“Even the number, the numerical categorization of people who might fall in that category, I was told clearly could not be said publicly without placing at risk the lives of our intelligence assets around the world,” May said. 

“I want my colleagues to understand this isn’t a game, this isn’t politics.”

MacGregor said he agreed with the spirit of the Conservative amendment, but would like to see names released only with the support of both the RCMP and CSIS. 

The committee will meet again to continue debating the second motion on Oct. 22.