Gunman targets Sikh activist behind contentious Canadian referendum

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As Sikh activist Satinder Pal Singh Raju and two associates drove along northern California’s i-505 freeway earlier this month, a white car sped up behind them, then swerved into the lane to their left.

That’s when someone in the other vehicle started shooting, a hail of bullets striking Raju’s pickup truck but miraculously touching no one inside.

“When the first shot was fired, I got nervous and ducked. Another round of shots came. In the meantime, our car skidded off the highway,” Raju, who helped organize a contentious Sikh independence referendum in Canada, told the National Post.

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“There was a field nearby and we abandoned the car and ran toward the field for our safety.”

Almost immediately, Raju says, he thought of his close friend Hardeep Singh Nijjar, the Sikh leader in Surrey, B.C., who was not so lucky, dying in a carefully planned June 2023 shooting. RCMP have charged four men with his murder, while Prime Minister Justin Trudeau suggested that Indian government agents were behind the hit.

In the U.S., meanwhile, the FBI charged a man with plotting to assassinate Canadian-American lawyer Gurpatwant Singh Pannun – whose group Sikhs for Justice is spearheading the referendum – under the direction of an Indian government employee.

Now Raju and Pannun are alleging the latest shooting was another assassination attempt orchestrated by India, though no perpetrator has been arrested or motive revealed.

“It’s an incident that is not stand-alone,” charged Pannun. “It is part of that trans-national repression that has been unleashed by the (Prime Minister Norendra) Modi regime, especially after he won the election this year.”

Raju said he is “100 per cent sure” that Indian agents are behind the apparent attempt on his life, saying he knows of no one else who would want him dead.

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A spokesman for the Indian embassy in Washington could not be reached for comment, but Delhi has previously denied ordering targeted killings in North America. Bloomberg News reported that India has blamed the Pannun plot on a “rogue agent” of the Research and Analysis Wing, the country’s main intelligence agency.

Trudeau’s allegation of Indian involvement sparked a diplomatic furor with Modi’s government at one point forcing many of Canada’s diplomats out of the country.

It’s impossible to know what was behind the recent California shooting yet, but there’s no evidence Raju was involved in any kind of criminal activity, while Canadian intelligence suggests India has targeted Sikh activists, noted Dan Stanton, a former Canadian Security Intelligence Service manager.

The fact Raju was a friend of Nijjar and involved in organizing the referendum suggests “it could be some sort of (murder) contract,” said Stanton, now national-security head at the University of Ottawa’s professional-development institute.

Pannun said he believes the threat on his life and others is ongoing. He noted that the arrest of four men in Brampton, Ont., in February on weapons charges has been linked to a possible attack on a wedding in the Toronto-area city. Pannun had been slated to be a guest at the ceremony, a few months after his alleged would-be assassin was arrested in the U.S.. One of the four was later charged in Nijjar’s murder.

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Meanwhile, Pannun pointed to Modi’s recent statements that the “new India,” rather than delivering documents to countries harboring India’s enemies, “comes into your home to kill you.”

While police in both Canada and the United States are pursuing criminal charges, neither nation’s government appears to have held Delhi and its diplomats here accountable for the alleged violence, giving them a sense of impunity, the activist said.

At the heart of the matter appears to be the unofficial, non-binding referendum, designed to canvas Sikhs around the world on whether India’s Punjab state should be carved out as an independent nation. As well as organizing votes in California, Raju spent three months in Canada after Nijjar’s death to help run the plebiscite in Surrey. He also was in Calgary until last month, organizing that city’s iteration of the vote.

Though it appears support for Punjuab independence is limited even in Punjab, the referendum has enraged Delhi, which labeled both Pannun and Nijjar as terrorists. India once tried to persuade Interpol to issue a red notice – similar to an arrest warrant – for Pannun but the UN agency refused to do so, arguing the request was politically based.

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Advocates of the Sikh cause have been blamed for a spate of terrorism in the 1980s and 1990s – including the downing of an Air India plane full of Canadian citizens – and some of those alleged terrorists have been championed by Sikh activists more recently. But there is no evidence the referendum is anything but a peaceful exercise.

The latest shooting occurred Oct. 11 on a stretch of the 505 Interstate highway, about 55 kilometres northwest of Sacramento. When Raju and his colleague fled from their truck at the side of the road, the white care sped away, the Sikh activist said, with Pannun translating from Punjabi.

Lieut. Don Harmon of the local Yolo County sheriff’s office confirmed the basic facts of the incident. His officers were first on the scene, but later turned over the case to the California Highway Patrol (CHP). A CHP spokesman could not be reached for comment.

If the alleged, unsuccessful assassination attempts were meant to act as a deterrent, both activists suggest they have failed.

“I pray to God and my gurus that I have been given a second life and my goal is to complete the Khalistan referendum,” said Raju. “I have no fear.”

“This is how it is written,” Pannun said. “If being dead is the price I have to pay … I’m ready to pay that price.”

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