How India silences critics in the US and Canada | Fault Lines Documentary

in July 2022 Canadian law enforcement visited the leader of this seek Temple his name was Hardeep sing ner they had a stark warning your life is at risk his son BJ was there there were about four or five officers that showed up really late into the night the first said there's a Emet threat of assassination against your life [Music] you should maybe not go to work for a few weeks or months and then his question was okay if I stay at home who's going to sort of be the bread winner of the family at 45 nider had dedicated his life to the creation of a separate state for siks in India his activism had made him a target of the Indian government but he never went into hiding and that's why we call it a sacrifice because he knew what he was doing he knew what was coming so on June 18 of last year he addressed the congregation that was there at the Gara and he was very open in that sense telling the congregation and the community that hey look if something does happen it's India that this is no mistake India came from him eight hours later on that same day nider left the temple around 8 p.m. the temple security camera shows him leaving in his pickup truck to his left a white sedan as ner neared the exit the sedan blocked his path two men jumped out and fired at ner multiple times at close [Music] range Niner's friends were playing soccer in the field next to the parking lot when they heard gunshots so when you open the door to hard Deep's truck what did you see he was shot all over the chest and his body was leaning towards the passenger side and his turbon was off the head the two gunmen fled on foot toward a separate getaway car I just saw his pickup and I just immediately knew it was him that India had assassinated him from the moment that you heard that this happened you were certain that India was behind this yes I was 100% certain the fight has now arrived at our door 3 months later on the floor of the Canadian Parliament prime minister Justin Trudeau accused India of plotting nider killing Canadian security agencies have been actively pursuing credible allegations of a potential link between agents of the government of India and the killing of a Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh [Music] n India strongly denied the allegations and called them absurd The Diplomatic Firestorm threatened India's relationship with Canada and with the United States its most powerful Ally we have not really seen instances of sick activists being targeted in North America so this is a new frontier and it's shocking why would India be willing to risk its relationship with the United States to silence these activists if you think of the sick assassination program in isolation it seems far-fetched but if you think of it as a continuation of repression that is happening in India then it makes sense what message do you think that they were trying to send I think the message they were trying to send is that we'll come to your home and we'll kill your leader right in front of you and you won't be able to do anything [Music] this year the annual parade marking the seek New Year outside Vancouver was dedicated to hard deep sing ner it's been almost a year since he was gunned down at the temple nearby with 500,000 people here it's the largest gathering of siks outside of India a sea of yellow flags are printed with the word kistan it's the name of the wouldbe state for seeks that ner advocated for and that allegedly motivated India to assassinate him odd to me that last year I can picture me and him on that same stage and now I'm standing there like you know with his son a year later and he's not there maninder Singh was a close friend of niders in 2022 he was also warned by Canadian law enforcement that he could be killed at any moment and the last thing he said to me in person was if something happens make sure you take care of things I think he meant his family but I think even more than that I think he meant the bun or the nation are you somebody that naturally likes to be on the stage like this in front of all of these people no I've been more of the person who is just part of the crowd I wasn't someone who likes a spotlight I'd rather just be part of everyone else but if I can just get his story out there hopefully that's I've done my part how do we get the proper Justice how do we hold everyone accountable for what they've done intimidating silencing and harming critics across National borders is known as transnational repression the goal of transnational repression is regime maintenance it's about upholding an image of a country or a leader abroad and silencing dissent Yana gorovaya has been tracking the spread of transnational repression around the world it's hard to say what the message behind the assassination is but I think that it's probably related to just um how much those activists are viewed as a threat to the internal stability within India a member of the Canadian Parliament jagmeet Singh was also at the parade after Trudeau accused India of killing nider he spoke directly to Canadian siks from the floor of the house the Indian government and the Modi government specifically is attempting to silence you but truth cannot be silenced Justice cannot and will not be silenced Singh is the leader of a major political party in Canada he's also reportedly been warned about the threat of assassination what does it tell you that India would be um would go after the the leader of a national party here in Canada so i' I've said that I can't respond to um information regarding my personal security and to me is completely wrong that anyone in Canada would live in any fear that while in Canada on Canadian soil that a foreign government is threatening their life in any way or threatening their safety in any way they think they're going to kill us and eventually shut us up I don't think that's going to work one thing for sure though is that kistan will be made kistan that's the name of the new country for seeks that activists would like to carve out of the Indian state of Punjab ner started organizing symbolic votes for the wouldbe seek state in the years before his death he hoped that staging referendums in Western nations would be a step toward the creation of a new country for siks but inside India today the idea has little support so why would India put its most important economic and diplomatic Ties on the line to suppress it to truly understand that program one has to be thinking about the authoritarian logic and they have had a lot of success chilling descent and they are now exporting that ideology and those practices abroad 4 days after nider was gunned down supporters chanted Indian Prime Minister Narendra Mod's name on the south lawn of the white house since coming to power in 2014 he's brought economic growth to India and raised its Global stature but critics argue he's also targeted Christians Muslims and other religious minorities in his effort to remake India into a Hindu Nation the Modi government um is very much an authoritarian regime anybody who dares to criticize the regime runs the risk that they could be harassed that they could be imprisoned that they could be designated a terrorist the United States had once effectively banned Modi for almost a decade because of his alleged role in a 2002 wave of violence against Muslims now President Biden is hosting him for an opulent State Dinner Modi is a Hindu nationalist uh Modi is someone who believes um that Hindus should enjoy privilege status over all other communities over all other Fates in India we've also seen state laws across India that criminalize uh conversion uh to Islam um that criminalize um Interfaith marriages lynchings are organized on Facebook and the videos are uploaded for the world to see and these are often Hindu mobs who are targeting Muslims dullet Christians and others and yet the world continues to welcome Modi with open arms India is seen as a counter to China specifically in the west Prime Minister Modi welcome back to the White House and so Western leaders are very keen uh on courting India and courting Modi and Modi weaponizes that in September Secretary of State Anthony blinkin said the United States expects those responsible for Niner's killing to be held to account we want to see accountability the state department declined our request for an interview as Modi dined at the White House Indian intelligence agents were allegedly finalizing their next assassination this time on American soil Indian spies plan to kill a seek activist in New York City according to an indictment filed in US federal court last year the target was Gat Wan sing panon a lawyer who advocates for a separate state for seeks in [Music] India he was friends with ner in their last conversation just hours before nider was gunned down he warned panon that they were both targets so he did tell me that he has been informed uh that there is a direct threat to his life that I need to be careful there are hitmen out there who are looking for you his words just came so true according to the indictment Indian intelligence agents hired a Hitman in New York City to assassinate panon the price $100,000 but the Hitman was an undercover US law enforcement agent who foiled the plot the indictment also ties the New York plan to the killing in Canada just hours after niger's death the spies sent their New York contact a video clip clip of niger's bloody body slumped in his vehicle they were just the first in a series of planned hits we have so many targets one plotter said according to the indictment even in the indictment confirmed that there are four or five other six besides my dad and mru who are being targeted in Canada or the US it sort of made it very clear there was a a clear pattern of who India was targeting do you think your life is still under threat yes but despite the threat p told me he plans to continue advocating for kistan why is this something that is so important to you so I have seen all the atrocities I've seen like what happened in 84 1984 that year in the Indian state of Punjab sik militants occupied sikhism's holiest site the golden temple then in June prime minister indura Gandhi ordered the Indian army to raid the complex and crushed the kistan movement the Indian government took tanks invaded the golden temple murdering uh an Untold number of sick worshippers that day troops again control the temple the seek Faith's poolish Shrine in retaliation for the golden temple raid indura Gandhi was assassinated by two of her seek bodyguards the prime minister's death Unleashed a wave of violence against seeks AC across India scores of cars belonging to seeks were burned most taxi drivers in Delhi are seeks proving easy targets for anger Hindus the Indian government was behind some of the worst human rights abuses of that era says sukman dami who spent years interviewing thousands of victims and what are we looking at here what we're looking at here is a map of the state of Punjab um that shows all the incidences of unlawful killings and enforced disappearances that we've documented and as you can see um there's virtually no area of Punjab that hasn't reported atrocities committed by India Security Forces what was the scale of the violence I mean what did you find we were able to investigate and document 5,300 enforced disappearances and unlawful killings perpetrated by India Security Forces as these killings and forced disappearances shook Punjab hard deep sign niter was coming of age he did share stories how one day he would be sitting with a group of friends and the next one of them is missing you just have to hope that tomorrow year not next and it would just make me wonder like how many friends has he lost to this already his own experience came when he was actually picked up tortured by police brutally you know the final straw came when like people around him very quickly started to disappear and he needed to leave uh he found a way out um because he knew he would sooner or later it was his turn ner fled Punjab for for Canada in 1997 he married and had two sons there's a tradition in Punjab that you know when you become brothers you exchange turbin at the day he was assassinated um I went and uh grabbed that Durban and I tore it in half and since that day I've had two of them one is always the bottom layer that touches my head when I tie my turban so kind of feels like he's with me all the time so yeah I think that's probably how close we [Music] are do you feel like you've been able to properly grieve his death probably not I don't think I ever will just because of who he meant to me since I would say day one I've been kind of stuck to his hip as I got older went for more of like a dad and son relationship to friends and then best friends especially as certain instances or certain situations started Rising these past 10 15 years especially through the Indian media it just brought us closer together as a family in 2020 India labeled ner as a terrorist it accused him of meeting militant leaders smuggling ammunition and plotting killings in India India labeled Hardeep as a terrorist was he a terrorist uh no he wasn't I mean I mean you know a a terrorist uh a wouldbe terrorist someone who supports terrorism they have to basically do things Dan Stanton spent more than 30 years as an officer in the Canadian Security intelligence service and so when India says we have someone or a witness or a source who says Mr Nar is a terrorist I would I would question that you know you may not like the activism but as long as it's not violent it still is a free expression so this document um came out in July 1st 2020 these are the charges against you this is how they're calling you a terrorist here they say that you have been uh issuing appeals and propagating through social media uh regularly to Punjab based gangsters and youth to fight for the cause an independent state of Kalan challenging the sovereignty integrity and security of the country uh if somebody has to label me as a terrorist they need to tell me what act of violence I have committed and what who did I uh Kill by referring to you know quote unquote terrorists or extremists abroad Modi is using an old Playbook um lots of governments when they target people abroad they don't say we target our critics they talk about extremists they talk about you know terrorists the same year India labeled ner a terrorist hundreds of thousands of farmers mostly seek from Punjab descended on New Delhi to protest modi's agricultural reforms it was one of the few times Modi backed down and changed course at the time modi's Government tried to portray the large protest as the work of Kalani terrorists the farmers won and and and and by some accounts it was one of the only major losses that the Modi government has suffered it was this loss that motivated the assassination plots in North America the guardian reported recently at a campaign rally Modi boasted about hunting down terrorists abroad does SE extremism exists in Canada today no seek extremism doesn't exist in Canada as far as I know we have activism they wish to portray them in in fact they wish to create this I'll call it an illusion that in other countries like Canada uh seeks particularly seek activists are a national security threat that's part of the narrative that India wants people to believe the activism is no different than the extremism and since Canada did have an experience with extremism there is a kernel of Truth certainly with respect to the Air India bombing in 1985 seek Fighters planted a bombb on an Air India flight from Vancouver to New Delhi killing all 329 people on board it was the deadliest terror attack in Canada's history but in the years after the attack the militant movement effectively fell apart I'd say into the 90s it pretty well dissipated we had Security in Punjab uh and uh certainly those organizations basically disappeared but where does the Indian government use this they they they go back on almost 40 years and they try to put the activists in Canada today people that are just basically expressing you know free expression uh tying them into the extremism of of many decades ago just months before niger's killing India's Ministry of external Affairs sent a secret memo to Indian consulates portraying him as an extremist against whom concrete measures must be taken the memo was first reported by the intercept it orders a sophisticated Crackdown scheme against Pro coliston activists in Western countries it instructs Consular officials to work with the Indian spy agency known as raw the research and Analysis Wing goyle's photo I think is right here the head of the raw was a man named samant Goyle he'd made his name during the Crackdown against siks in Punjab and during his tenure there he oversaw the the unlawful killing and disappearance of well over a 100 individuals and he participated directly in some of these operations dy's team interviewed thousands of witnesses to estimate the scale of human rights violations perpetrated under goyle's command and so these are the abuses that we documented that he's implicated in um nearly 130 enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings um and what we now know is that he would have been instrumental in planning and orchestrating that assassination so some of the same people that were responsible for killing siks in the 80s and 90s were involved in uh planning Hardeep signer's killing that's correct these individuals um were particularly uh qualified to lead these intelligence agencies because they proved that they were willing to do whatever the state asked of them including torture unlawful killings and enforced disappearance es samant Goyle and the Indian government did not respond to our request for comment in April the Washington Post reported that the FBI the CIA and other American intelligence agencies found that samant Goyle approved the New York assassination plot American intelligence also tentatively assessed that this man one of modi's closest advisers AIT doval was probably aware of the assassination plans according to the Washington Post how far up did this go well let's look at it this way the director of the research and Analysis swing the raw reports directly to Modi I think it goes right up to Prime Minister Modi do you think there is going to be meaningful accountability for the killing of hard sing ner and the targeting of other seek activists for the US and Canada a Cooperative relationship with India is very important it's an important economic security partner and it is also a hugely important buffer to the influence of China and for those reasons um you know pursuing cases of transnational repression and pushing accountability for those cases is a trade-off for governments between uh upholding human rights and pursuing their foreign policy interests it has been almost a year since Niner's killing in New York panon lives with round-the-clock security in sui there is a sense of fear in the community why are you all concerned about showing your faces when you're talking about all this we're Canadian yes uh but the thing is you know we don't want to put our lives at risk in that sense just ner he was preaching here be totally peaceful best to be safe than sorry I mean these are Canadians they played hockey as they were kids and everything else but it doesn't matter where you're living in the world there should not be a foreign State targeting you uh in your country that that's wrong in May Canadian law enforcement arrested four men who allegedly carried out Niner's killing community members gathered at the courthouse for the first hearing India has promised an investigation into the New York assassination plot but a year after niger's death there's no sign that those who planned it will be held accountable I think it's wishful thinking that they will be held responsible just because it is a geopolitical game they just won't care that they feel they're that they're enough of a big Power in the world now that doesn't really matter to them they don't really care what the rest of the world thinks

Channel: Al Jazeera English

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Keywords: Al Jazeera, Hindu, India Election 2024, Politics, Hinduism, India Asssassination, Canada, United States, Fault Lines, Documentary, Al Jazeera English, Al Jazeera Documentary, Sikh, Sikh Assassination, India Documentary, India Politics, Hardeep Singh Nijja, Sikhs in India, Racism, United States Documentary, Canada Documentary, Al Jazeera Latest, AlJazeera, Al Jazeera Live, AlJazeera Live, Documentary 2024, Latest News, US Latest News, Canada Latest News, Investigation

Id: 4PuMnRkDPHQ

Length: 24min 52sec (1492 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 07 2024