Toronto: Even as the secessionist group Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) is scheduled to hold the next round of its so-called Khalistan Referendum on July 28, India has communicated its displeasure to Ottawa over its territory being used for such separatist activity.
India has also expressed its concern over the venue for the referendum being a public space, in this case a municipal facility. These views have been formally communicated by India’s High Commission in Ottawa to Global Affairs Canada, the country’s foreign ministry.
Meanwhile, even as several signs of the upcoming referendum were placed in parts of Calgary, where the referendum is being held, several were defaced by unknown persons with spray paint terming them as “Illegal Sign,” as per images shared with the Hindustan Times.
This was also confirmed by SFJ’s general-counsel Gurpatwant Pannun, who said they were “defaced’ and “banners pierced”.
He said this occurred over the weekend. “And they continue to do wherever we are putting new ones,” he added.
The posters feature, among others, images of Talwinder Singh Parmar, considered the mastermind of the bombing of Air India flight 182, the Kanishka, on June 23, 1985, claiming 329 lives and which remains the worst-ever incident of terror in Canadian history. Also featured is Hardeep Singh Nijjar, SFJ’s principal organiser for the province of British Columbia on June 18 last year in Surrey. Nijjar was considered a terrorist in India but never faced charges in Canada. His killing led to a subsequent rupture in ties between India and Canada after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s statement in the House of Commons on September 18, 2023, that there were “credible allegations” of a potential link between Indian agents and the murder.
The venue for the July 28 referendum is the Calgary Municipal Complex Atrium and Plaza, owned and operated by the city.
Calgary is headed by an Indo-Canadian Mayor Jyoti Gondek.
The last time a government facility was registered for the referendum was the Tamanawis Secondary School in Surrey, British Columbia. However, on September 3 last year, a week before the scheduled date for the referendum, a spokesperson for the Surrey District School Board said, in a release, that it had “cancelled a community rental of one of our schools due to a violation of our rental agreement”.
That referendum was ultimately held on September 10 last year at the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in Surrey. Prior to that on September 18, 2022, it was organised at the Gore Meadows Community Centre, a municipal property in Brampton in the Greater Toronto Area or GTA.
Meanwhile, SFJ also launched a 24-hour “picketing” of India’s consulate in Vancouver on Wednesday afternoon. The reason it cited was a Washington Post report that the consulate provided logistics and support for Nijjar’s killing. While four Indian nationals have been arrested by Canadian investigators in that connection, no link to India has been revealed. However, law enforcement has said that line of the probe is still being pursued. India has described the allegations as “absurd” and “motivated.”