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Visit by India's counterterror agency stirs up tension over Sikh separatists in Canada

The visit by members of India’s NIA underscored continuing tension between the two countries over the Liberal government’s approach to the Sikh separatist movement Agents from India's National Investigation Agency launch a raid in 2019. PHOTO BY HABIB NAQASH/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES/FILE Article content
On the surface, it seemed like a routine encounter between law-enforcement agencies in two inter-connected nations. But a visit to Canada by members of India’s controversial counterterrorism agency has sparked distress within the Sikh-Canadian community, and underscored continuing tension between the two countries over the Liberal government’s approach to the Sikh separatist movement.
Sikh groups say the appearance here of top National Investigation Agency (NIA) figures is part of a campaign of intimidation against Indo-Canadians who oppose New Delhi policies.
Sikh separatists, or Khalistanis, were also at the forefront of rallies in Canada to support Indian farmers protesting new agricultural legislation there.
The Indian High Commission t outed the agency’s meetings with RCMP officers and government officials as a positive collaboration in the fight against global terrorism and other crimes. Balpreet Singh, spokesman for the Ontario-based World Sikh Organization (WSO), was not convinced. The NIA has a long record of human rights abuses and its meetings here raise the spectre of more trouble for Sikh-Canadians at odds with the government of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he said.
“Opening the doors to the NIA in Canada, this is scary for Sikhs,” said Singh Monday. “Sikhs are very disturbed by this news.… It’s difficult to understand how Canada can be working with an organization like this and maintain its human rights standards.” In fact, several media outlets in India reported that the agency was in Ottawa to lobby Canada to slap a terrorist designation on Sikhs for Justice, a group that has been peacefully organizing a non-binding
“referendum” on Sikh separatism — and raising the ire of the Modi administration in the process. The WSO wrote a lengthy letter to Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino complaining about the NIA visit, which the high commission said was at the invitation of the RCMP.
Gurpatwant Pannun, the Sikhs for Justice general counsel, said in an interview Monday that India’s objections to the group are about quashing dissent, not combating terrorism.
“Sikhs for Justice believes in ballots, not bullets,” he said. “They want to suppress our freedom of speech.”
But not all Sikh-Canadians are worried about the NIA’s presence on Canadian soil.
The two countries have been co-operating for years on terrorism, drug smuggling and other types of crime and the visit made sense, said Balraj Deol, editor of Ontario’s Khabarnama Punjabi Weekly newspaper and a critic of the Khalistani movement.