A meeting near Toronto in the summer of last year is pointing to an emerging link between Pakistan, fugitive Amritpal Singh’s outfit Waris Punjab De and leading Khalistani figures in Canada.
In May last year, Pakistan’s consul general in Toronto, met with a group that included Daljit Singh Kalsi, considered an aide to Amritpal Singh and now detained under the National Security Act. He was picked up from Gurugram.
Kalsi met Pakistan’s then consul general Abdul Hameed in his office at the Consulate in Vaughan, a town close to Toronto. That meeting was ostensibly to present a memorandum about the killing of Sikhs in Peshawar. But the cast of characters that were present there includes those considered leaders of the Khalistan movement in Canada.
Among them was Bhagat Singh Brar, son of Lakhbir Singh Rode, president of the International Sikh Youth Federation, a designated terror organisation in Canada. Brar was placed on a no-fly list by the Canadian government in 2018. He challenged the action in a federal court but a judge upheld it, saying, in August last year, “The threat posed by individuals suspected of travelling abroad to engage in extremist activity (extremist travellers) is significant and presents difficult challenges to both Canada and its allies.”
Also present was Amarjit Mann, spokesperson for the Ontario Gurdwaras Committee and a supporter of Khalistan. Then there was Jasbir Singh Boparai, associated with the Malton Gurdwara in the Greater Toronto Area, notorious for its support for the so-called Punjab Referendum organised by Sikhs for Justice. There as well were Deepinder Loomba and Sukhwinder Singh, both of the group United Sikhs, which participates in organising anti-India protests in Ottawa every year.
This is part of the process of Pakistan’s missions in Canada meeting with such elements and organising jathas or pilgrimages to Pakistan. Among those thus privileged was the late Sukhminder Singh Hansra, in 2022. Hansra was a vocal proponent of Khalistan, and was also photographed with Pakistan’s then consul general in Toronto Asghar Ali Golo at a nagar kirtan in 2016.
Hameed left Canada in August last year and is currently director-general in Pakistan’s ministry of foreign affairs in Islamabad, according to his LinkedIn bio.
In between Hameed and Golo was Imran Siddiqui, who was the chief guest at “Evening of Honour and Dignity” in December 2018, an event organised by the ‘Sikh Community’ apparently to thank the Pakistan government and Army chief General Javed Bajwa for their initiative over the Kartarpur Corridor.
Siddiqui ran into trouble the next year for allegedly threatening a Pakistan-origin journalist and left Canada soon after. At the time a recording of that threat emerged, Howard Anglin, a former deputy chief of staff to Canada’s prime minister, said the government of Justin Trudeau “should have the guts to expel the diplomats involved, as the other govts have done when Pakistani diplomats crossed legal/diplomatic lines”. That was perhaps a hint to the expulsion of another Pakistani consul general in Toronto when Stephen Harper was the PM. However, that was not a formal measure and the unidentified diplomat was asked to leave due to his links to Khalistanis.