Canada on Monday designated India’s Bishnoi gang as a “terrorist entity,” aiming at the group responsible for a murder that caused Ottawa-New Delhi relations to deteriorate last year.
Canada accused the infamous syndicate Bishnoi gang — infamous in India for assassinations and extortions — of potential links to the killing of influential Sikh activist and Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Vancouver.
Nijjar, who had advocated for a separate Sikh state carved out of India, was shot dead in a parking lot in 2023.
Following the incident, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have alleged that members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government worked with the “Bishnoi Group (Bishnoi gang)” to target Sikh activists in Canada.
India furiously rejected those charges, sparking a diplomatic fallout that saw both countries expel top diplomats.
Canada’s Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree stated on Monday’s terrorism designation that it provided Ottawa with “more effective and stronger tools to deal with” the Bishnoi gang.
A media release from his office termed the Bishnoi gang “a transnational criminal organization based mainly out of India, with operations in Canada, that engenders terror through intimidation and extortion.
Canada labels India’s Bishnoi gang as a terrorist group
The action follows Prime Minister Mark Carney’s inauguration in March as he attempts to mend relations with India that foundered under his predecessor, Justin Trudeau.
Carney has wooed India as part of a bid to enhance Canada’s Asian trade relationships, which the prime minister claims is necessary to counter the effect of the trade war with the U.S.
Carney spoke with Modi one-on-one during the Canada-hosted G7 summit in June, emphasizing “the important commercial connections between Canada and India.”
Also Read: Who is Lawrence Bishnoi, at centre of standoff between India and Canada?
In October 2024, India and Canada expelled six diplomats from each other’s country in retaliatory actions after Ottawa charged Indian government officials with connections to the 2023 killing of a Sikh separatist leader outside Vancouver.
WHO IS LAWRENCE BISHNOI?
The 31-year-old law graduate, who has been behind bars since 2015, has been charged by the NIA with operating a trans-national crime syndicate.
Hailing from Punjab in northern India, Bishnoi is short and wiry, being bearded and having a moustache when he appears in public for legal hearings.
In statements, the NIA has said he runs his syndicate from jails in different states, as well as countries such as Canada, through associates, who have been in contact with ‘pro-Khalistani’ elements in neighbouring Nepal and other countries.
However, Bishnoi has said he opposes Khalistan, or the demand for an independent Sikh state, and was not ‘anti-national’, in an interview with a private news channel last year.
The interview video is now removed and police are following up on how the video was recorded
