Hardeep Singh Nijjar Biography
Born in India, Hardeep Singh Nijjar migrated to Canada in the mid-1990s. Sikh organizations viewed Nijjar as a human rights activist, while the Indian government accused him of being a criminal and terrorist affiliated with the militant Khalistan Tiger Force, and sought his arrest. Nijjar and his supporters rejected these allegations, saying he advocated peaceful means for creation of Khalistan. Nijjar gained prominence in 2019, when he became the leader of Guru Nanak Sikh Gurudwara (temple) in Surrey, British Columbia, and became an advocate of Sikh separatism. Nijjar was also associated with Sikhs for Justice (SFJ), and spearheaded the group’s Khalistan Referendum 2020 campaign.
On 18 June 2023, Nijjar was shot and killed in the parking lot of a Sikh temple in British Columbia.On 18 September 2023, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated that Canadian intelligence agencies were “pursuing credible allegations of a potential link” between Indian government agents and the assassination of Nijjar. After the killing, Canada expelled an Indian diplomat from the country. India’s foreign ministry denied involvement in the killing, and expelled a top Canadian diplomat in a tit-for-tat move.
In May 2024, Canadian police arrested three people who are allegedly members of a hit squad, which investigators claim killed Nijjar on the orders of the Indian Government. The three suspects arrested are Indian nationals, Karan Brar, Kamal Preet Singh, and Karan Preet Singh, all of whom had been living in Canada for last few years.The Canadian Police said that investigations were ongoing, including into the possible connection of Indian authorities.
Early life and immigration to Canada of Hardeep Singh Nijjar
Nijjar was originally from a village in Jalandhar, Punjab, and migrated to Canada in the mid-1990s. According to The Tribune, Nijjar was arrested in India in 1995 amidst a crackdown on an armed insurgency in Punjab.
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Nijjar arrived in Canada on 10 February 1997, using a fraudulent passport that identified him as “Ravi Sharma”, and made a refugee claim.[21] In a sworn affidavit, he indicated that his brother, father and uncle had all been arrested, and he himself had been tortured by police.[21] His claim was rejected, as officials thought his documentation was partially fabricated;[21][19] officials suspected that a letter, supposedly written by an Indian physician and attesting to his torture, was forged.[19] The panel wrote that it did “not believe that the claimant was arrested by the police and that he was tortured by the police.”
Eleven days after his claim was denied, Nijjar married a woman who sponsored his immigration. Officials noted that the woman had arrived in Canada in 1997, married to another man, and rejected the claim as a marriage of convenience. In 2001, Nijjar appealed this ruling but lost.
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He was ultimately permitted entry into Canada. According to Marc Miller, the Canadian Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Nijjar became a Canadian citizen on 25 May 2007.
Involvement with Sikh organisations of Hardeep Singh Nijjar
In Canada, Nijjar operated a plumbing business and was married with two sons. He lived in Surrey, British Columbia, where he was a leader of the local Sikh community. He became the president of the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara, a Sikh temple in Surrey, in 2018. The New York Times described the congregation as “the oldest, largest and most politically powerful of the dozen or so Sikh temples in Surrey.” Nijjar was re-affirmed as president of Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in 2022.
Nijjar was a leader of the Canadian branch of Sikhs for Justice. In 2012, he circulated petitions collecting signatures, calling on the United Nations to recognize anti-Sikh violence in India in 1984 as a genocide.In the months before his death, he was organizing an unofficial referendum among the Sikh diaspora, sponsored by Sikhs for Justice, in support of the Khalistan movement, which seeks an independent Sikh state. The Khalistan movement is banned in India, but has support within the Sikh diaspora.After his death, the World Sikh Organization of Canada said that Nijjar “often led peaceful protests against the violation of human rights actively taking place in India and in support of Khalistan.”
As a religious leader, Nijjar engaged in various community activities, holding special prayers for the Muslims slain in the 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings in New Zealand and for the Canadian indigenous children buried in unmarked graves at Canadian residential schools.[19] He also called for the release of G. N. Saibaba, a human rights activist imprisoned in India.
Nijjar had a dispute with Ripudaman Singh Malik, a Canadian Sikh who had been acquitted over involvement in the 1985 bombing of Air India Flight 182. Malik and a partner purchased a commercial printing press to use to print Sikh religious scripture, but later sued Nijjar in a civil lawsuit in British Columbia, alleging that Nijjar had failed to return the press that Malik had given him for safekeeping.
After Malik was murdered in July 2022, several Indian news reports, quoting Indian intelligence officials, speculated that Nijjar was somehow linked to Malik’s death. Nijjar denounced these claims, saying that he was friendly with Malik, that he sent his son to a school founded by Malik, and that he respected Malik’s work within the Sikh community; Nijjar’s lawyer said that Nijjar was “being vindictively targeted and accused of crimes solely based on dissenting political opinions.”
