The phone rang early that morning. Amarjot Singh, half asleep in his Montreal apartment, fumbled for his cell. On the line was a relative, calling from India, his voice urgent: Amarjot’s name was in the papers. India’s National Investigation Agency was after him.
Amarjot was being branded a terrorist. That day in June 2023, the Indian government accused him of leading a mob of protesters who allegedly threw two grenades into the country’s high commission in Ottawa during a Sikh protest three months earlier.
Amarjot was shocked. And worried. In March that year, the then thirty-year-old Canadian permanent resident (he is now a Canadian citizen) had attended a rally protesting the Indian government’s crackdown on civil liberties in Punjab. But Amarjot says it was a peaceful event. He hadn’t thrown anything. He wasn’t a political leader. He was a truck driver, a man of faith, and a father to a baby girl. He had attended the protest largely out of family loyalty, because his wife’s brother is a Sikh activist in India and some of the protesters were there to support him. How did attending a protest turn him into a man wanted for terrorism?
As Amarjot tried to understand how his name had become linked to a terror attack he hadn’t heard of, something far more chilling filled the headlines: a few days before, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a prominent Sikh leader in Surrey, British Columbia, had been gunned down by masked men outside the gurdwara where he served as president. Many in Canada’s Sikh community believed the killing had all the markings of a political assassination—one ordered by the Indian state. That belief took hold quickly, sparked by Nijjar’s outspoken activism against what he saw as India’s human rights abuses and his involvement in the campaign for an independent Sikh homeland, Khalistan. It deepened after reports that he had been warned by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service about threats to his life linked to the Indian government. The Indian government had also labelled Nijjar a terrorist and offered a bounty of 1 million rupees, or roughly $16,000, for his capture.
Amarjot, suddenly branded a terrorist himself, worried he would be next. Haunted by this possibility, he assumed India had targeted him not for anything he’d done but because of his family connection: his wife’s twin brother, Amritpal Singh, is a vocal critic of India’s ruling party.
Though Amarjot says he has never been involved in Amritpal’s activism, the Indian government’s accusations destroyed his life overnight. Within weeks, he felt hunted—caught in what looked like an international web of espionage and assassination plots stretching from Punjab to Canada.
Amarjot Singh is a soft-spoken man with a short beard who often wears a navy-blue turban. His hometown of Butala in Punjab experienced economic decline over the past few decades. To make ends meet, Amarjot took work as a truck driver in the United Arab Emirates, spending long stretches away from his family. He felt increasingly vulnerable in India, where the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been accused of stoking intolerance and violence against minorities, including Sikhs. He came to Canada in 2018, buoyed by hope for the future.
Amarjot met his would-be wife here, and the two married in 2020. They longed for a safe place to raise a family and were both drawn by what then prime minister Justin Trudeau described as the country’s “respect, openness, courage, and compassion” that Amarjot felt reflected Sikh teachings. The couple saw Sikh Canadians thriving as transportation workers, business owners, and politicians and knew this was where they wanted to make their permanent home.
In Canada, their dream seemed to be taking shape—for a time. Amarjot found steady work as a truck driver. His wife became an office administrator at the same company. They had a close circle of family and friends in Montreal and welcomed a baby girl in 2022. They believed Canada promised the future they imagined for her.
Then came the accusation in June 2023.
Out of concern for their safety, Amarjot and his wife uprooted their lives and left Montreal. It took six months for both to find new employment in a different city—which left them financially devastated.
Back in India, authorities escalated their pressure campaign, raiding the homes of his mother, sister, and uncle—forcing their way in to seize documents, memorabilia, photos, and cellphones.
In Amarjot’s view, India’s false accusations that he is a terrorist are about power and leverage, part of a strategy to punish political dissent by ensnaring the families of activists—even those who live in faraway countries. Amritpal, Amarjot’s brother-in-law, was taken into custody in Punjab on April 23, 2023, without formal charges. He was transferred to a jail in Dibrugarh, in India’s northeast. While imprisoned, Amritpal won a seat in India’s 2024 parliamentary elections.
Indian newspapers portrayed the 2023 Ottawa demonstration Amarjot attended as an attack on the high commission and labelled him the leader of a mob of protesters. According to a story in the Journal de Montréal, an intelligence report from the NIA claimed demonstrators had tied Khalistani separatist flags to the high commission gate, shouted anti-India slogans, and hurled two grenades into the building. It said the protesters led by Amarjot had “committed the offence of unlawful activities.”
Amarjot was stunned by the allegations. “How could this be possible? I didn’t throw a single stone,” he told me. “It was a peaceful protest.”
Canadian reports on the protest tell a story similar to Amarjot’s, one very different from that painted by the Indian press. The Ottawa protest was so quiet, it received virtually no immediate media coverage. The city was already under heightened security that day due to a visit of then United States president Joe Biden. Ottawa Police Service, which was present at the demonstration, told the Journal de Montréal the event essentially went off without incident, aside from the possibility a smoke canister may have been thrown. They told the Globe and Mail they were probing the possible use of smoke canisters. When I contacted them, they said they had “no details on the outcome of the investigation nor if there were other reports of violence that day.”
Amarjot remains deeply frightened. The claims against him have similarities to those against Avtar Singh Khanda, a Sikh resident of England, who was accused of tearing down the Indian flag outside the Indian high commission in London during a protest the same week as the one in Ottawa in March 2023. Khanda died, potentially poisoned, according to a report in the Guardian—eight days before Amarjot was incriminated in Canada. In New York, a murder-for-hire plot against activist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun was uncovered and foiled by US authorities in November 2023.
Worried in the days after the accusation, Amarjot asked for support from Balpreet Singh, legal counsel for the World Sikh Organization of Canada. “Amarjot Singh’s life is at real risk,” Balpreet Singh told me, emphasizing, when he agreed to an interview, that Amarjot’s location must remain secret.
Over the past two years, Amarjot has anxiously followed the wave of crimes against Sikhs sweeping Canada, including at least a dozen alleged extortion episodes, as reported by the New York Times. Among the cases: a Sikh-owned car dealership riddled with bullets, a restaurant set on fire, and businesspeople threatened with violence unless they paid up hundreds of thousands of dollars.
After an investigation, Canadian authorities announced in October 2024 they believed the Bishnoi gang, led by accused murderer Lawrence Bishnoi, had orchestrated widespread attacks on Sikhs in the country. Officials said gang members targeted Sikh activists on India’s orders, leading the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to warn at least twelve people that they might be targets of assassination plots by Indian agents.
In a letter to Canada’s Foreign Interference Commission, Amarjot pleaded with the government to recognize the danger he faces. “I implore the Canadian government to take stronger action to protect Sikhs in Canada from such foreign interference,” he wrote on August 7, 2024—reflecting the tension between the country’s obligation to protect the rights of hundreds of thousands of Sikhs who have long called it home and Canada’s shifting diplomatic priorities with India.
Sikhs have been part of Canada’s social and political fabric for more than a century. The first arrivals settled in BC in the early 1900s, working in forestry, railway construction, and agriculture. At least 250,000 Sikhs served in the world wars, many fighting alongside Canadian forces, a shared sacrifice that forged bonds between Sikh immigrants and Canadian society. According to 2021 census data, Sikhs make up more than 2 percent of Canada’s population and hold prominent positions in politics, business, and philanthropy.
At the same time, the Sikh community remains shadowed by unrest in their homeland. Amarjot grew up hearing stories about 1984—the year Indian forces stormed inside the Golden Temple in Amritsar, Punjab, killing hundreds, including his great-grandfather. The Indian government said the operation was necessary to remove Sikh separatists who were sheltering in the temple after failed negotiations and months of violence. The bloody attack drove then prime minister Indira Gandhi’s Sikh bodyguards to assassinate her in revenge.
Amarjot’s parents would speak about the thousands of Sikhs killed in the pogroms that followed, and the lingering trauma from the fallout for the community and his own family made Amarjot wary. Now, more than four decades later, that same fear has followed him from India to Canada.
In fact, the Indian government’s surveillance of Sikh communities abroad began decades before Amarjot arrived in Canada. As early as 1987, the Globe and Mail reported on CSIS identifying Indian diplomats deploying “provocateurs to penetrate Canada’s Sikh communities in Toronto and Vancouver.” India argues that Canada harbours Sikh extremists, pointing to the deadliest terrorist act the country has experienced: the 1985 Air India bombing that killed all 329 people aboard a flight from Canada to India. Two Sikh Canadians were acquitted of all charges related to the bombing, and one was later killed by hitmen. Investigators have alleged that the bombings were planned by Sikh separatists as revenge for the Golden Temple massacre, but the layers of violence and mystery around the bombing have never really been solved.
While India was targeting Sikhs in Canada, some Canadians became more wary of Sikhs too. The Sikh turban, once a symbol of loyal wartime allies, came to be viewed with fear and suspicion as public misunderstanding grew with global media reports showing head coverings worn by the al-Qaeda terrorists behind 9/11.
The trend has continued over the years. In 2024, a researcher with the Canadian Anti-Hate Network told PressProgress that there has been a visible increase in online hate speech against South Asians in Canada, especially Sikh men. In Ontario, hate crimes included a Peterborough man alleging he was spat on and “had his turban knocked off and stepped on,” a Toronto man who reported having his turban removed and stolen, and another man in Sudbury who was attacked and threatened with being run over for wearing a kirpan, a Sikh article of faith. Balpreet Singh says he is supporting over a dozen Sikhs concerned by the rise in hate crimes who are not willing to share their names publicly.
Globally, transnational repression—the targeting of dissidents on foreign soil by regimes such as Russia, Iran, and China, as well as India—is a growing concern. In 2024, more than twenty governments perpetrated 160 incidents of physical transnational repression, “including assassinations, abductions, assaults, detentions, and unlawful deportations,” across thirty-four countries, according to Freedom House, a US-based non-profit organization. Yana Gorokhovskaia, a researcher with Freedom House, told Foreign Affairs that this escalating wave represents an “export of authoritarianism.”
For a time, Amarjot and Balpreet believed the Canadian government was listening to their concerns. On September 18, 2023, Trudeau addressed the House of Commons, saying security agencies were investigating “credible allegations of a potential link” between agents of the Indian government and Nijjar’s murder. His statement not only validated Sikh Canadians’ fears of foreign targeting but also placed the issue of transnational repression firmly on the global agenda.
In October 2024, Amarjot watched as the deeper conspiracy his community had suspected came to light. The RCMP announced that they were conducting ongoing investigations into criminal activities—including extortion, threats, and homicide—involving agents of the Indian government. Ottawa responded to the report by expelling India’s high commissioner to Canada, Sanjay Kumar Verma, and five other diplomats. India angrily rejected the accusations and expelled six Canadian diplomats in retaliation.
For the Canadian Sikh community, Canada’s stand was vindicating. “For forty years, we were telling our stories, but no one was listening,” Balpreet Singh says. Now that the RCMP and the prime minister had spoken openly, “it’s not conspiracy theories anymore. It’s actually the truth.”
But Canada’s protective stance has proven fragile. While Trudeau was willing to risk diplomatic relations with India to uphold Canada’s sovereignty and international law, Prime Minister Mark Carney has emphasized the need to rebuild those ties. For Amarjot, Carney shaking hands with Modi at the G7 summit in Kananaskis, Alberta, this June felt like betrayal.
Canadian Sikhs now worry economic interests and geopolitical pragmatism will override their safety. In October, Minister of Foreign Affairs Anita Anand said Ottawa was moving to normalize relations with India, reported the Globe and Mail, focusing first on ending New Delhi’s interference in Canadian affairs and, in the longer term, pursuing freer trade. The World Sikh Organization of Canada is urging Ottawa to go further, insisting that any dialogue with India be contingent on New Delhi’s co-operation in criminal investigations and a firm commitment to ending foreign interference and transnational repression. They are also calling for a formal inquiry into Indian interference in Canada and for a suspension of intelligence sharing with India until human rights safeguards are in place.
On a cool summer day, I speak to Amarjot and his wife in the bright kitchen of their home. Amarjot explains that he has limited his contact with friends and family in India out of concern for their safety. “I am worried about my mother, my brother, my brother’s wife, and their two daughters,” he says. “The Indian government can give them a tough time.”
The slightest connection to Amarjot could put others at risk. Returning to India means certain arrest for Amarjot. For his wife, a visit home could become a trap—Amarjot worries she might be detained to force him to go there. As I chat with Amarjot, his wife says nothing and eventually goes upstairs.
“It’s a very, very hard time for us,” Amarjot tells me, struggling to keep his voice steady. He once believed Canada would shelter his family from the sectarian shadows of his homeland, but borders, he has learned, don’t stop bullets.
