Sikh independence activists have filed a lawsuit alleging India’s involvement in two alleged coordinated attacks, including the death of a temple leader in British Columbia.
Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a Sikh who seeks justice, says his civil lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, aims to hold the Indian government accountable for its alleged involvement in the shooting death of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, British Columbia, last year and the conspiracy against Pannun that followed.
The allegations have not been proven in court and the Indian Embassy in Washington, DC, did not respond to requests for comment.
Nijjar was shot and killed on June 18, 2023, outside the Sikh temple where he served as chairman, and four Indian nationals have been charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.
US authorities then announced in November that an Indian national, Nikhil Gupta, had been indicted in New York in connection with a thwarted murder-for-hire plot against Pannun.
In Pannun’s latest lawsuit, his New York-based lawyers allege that gunmen in British Columbia shot Nijjar 34 times “at close range” before fleeing, and that a video of Nijjar’s “bloody body” was sent to Gupta “as a message to further their murder plot against Pannun.”
“They succeeded in killing Nijjar,” Pannun’s lawyer, Matthew Bowden, said in a video call. “The same thing would have happened to Pannun but for the fact that the person Gupta tried to hire was an undercover U.S. agent.”
Court documents also say Gupta told undercover agents to “execute everyone” if Pannun was not alone when planning the attack.
Gupta has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Panun and Nijjar are leading figures in the overseas Sikh independence movement, which seeks to establish an independent state called Khalistan within India.
The movement has organized numerous non-binding referendums in Sikh communities overseas, including in Metro Vancouver, calling for the creation of an independent Sikh homeland in India.
Nijjar’s murder sparked a diplomatic dispute between Canada and India after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told Parliament in 2023 that credible information linked the murder to the Indian government.
India considers many associated with the Khalistan movement to be terrorists, extremists and militant separatists, and denies any involvement in the Nijar and Pannun massacres.
India said it had launched a high-level investigation into the Pannun incident after being notified by US authorities.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is due to visit the United States over the weekend to attend a summit between the US, India, Japan and Australia.
Pannun said the aim of filing a civil lawsuit against India in addition to the existing criminal case against Gupta is to send a message from Sikh activist groups abroad.
“This is about the rule of law and no individual or government, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, is above the law,” Pannun said. “Holding the Modi government accountable in a U.S. court would help establish the principle of the rule of law.”
