Sikhs protest outside Indian consulate in Canada over leader’s murder

Members of Canada’s Sikh community have demonstrated outside the Indian consulate in Toronto, Canada, to protest the unsolved murder of one of their leaders last month in the Vancouver area.

They said the Indian government is responsible for the gunning down of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, president of a Sikh temple and campaigner for the creation of an independent Sikh state that supporters hope to call Khalistan.

“When an Indian agency and system commit a crime, they have to be held accountable,” Kuljeet Singh, a spokesperson for Sikhs for Justice, a US-based organisation behind the rally, told the media.

Hardeep Singh Nijjar was gunned down on June 18 in Surrey, a suburb of Vancouver that is home to one of the largest Sikh populations in Canada.

Another protester, Hakirt Singh, a lawyer, told the media that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police [RCMP] “should investigate this murder” as a political assassination.

“When there is vandalism against a Member of Parliament you see tweets and reactions from politicians. Here it is an assassination of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil. That is foreign interference.”

The demonstrators carried yellow flags with blue logos representing their separatist movement and shouted, “Khalistan! Khalistan!”