Canadian police have arrested and charged three Indian men with the murder of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar last year and said they are probing whether the men had ties to the Indian government.
The murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar plunged Canada and India into a serious diplomatic crisis last fall after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau suggested Indian government involvement in the homicide. Nijjar advocated for a separate Sikh state, known as Khalistan, carved out of India. On June 18, 2023, he was shot dead by masked assailants in the parking lot of the Sikh temple he led in suburban Vancouver. Trudeau announced several months later that Canada had credible allegations linking Indian intelligence to the killing and expelled an Indian official, spurring the diplomatic tit-for-tat with New Delhi.
Three Indian nationals, two aged 22 and one aged 28, were arrested Friday and charged with first degree murder and conspiracy charges. They are accused of being the shooter, driver and lookout on the day Nijjar was killed.
They were arrested by police in Edmonton, in the neighboring province of Alberta, where they reside, and are being held pending further proceedings.
All had been in Canada for between three and five years, police said at a news conference. “This investigation does not end here. We are aware that others may have played a role in this homicide,” said Mandeep Mooker of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s homicide investigations team.
Mooker said Canadian police are still investigating the ties of the suspects, “if any, to the Indian government.”
