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Canadian police warn critic of pro-Khalistan movement on threats to his life
Maninder Singh Gill, managing director of Radio India, said he was told of threats by officers from the Surrey detachment of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Toronto: A prominent critic of the pro-Khalistan movement in Canada has received formal warnings from law enforcement that he is under threat.
Maninder Singh Gill, managing director of Radio India, told the Hindustan Times that these alerts, or duty of warn notices, were given to him by officers from the Surrey detachment of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in 2023 and 2024.
He said, “They told me my life was in danger because I’m a controversial person in the community since I oppose the Khalistanis.”
The first duty to warn was received in April 2023. The notice stated, “The police have determined by way of one or more investigative avenues that your life may be in peril. At this time, we are unable to provide you specific details of the threat,” according to a copy that was shared with the Hindustan Times.
The second warning was received this April, Gill said, and included the same wording. However, he added, during a conversation at his residence in Surrey, British Columbia, the officers who came to deliver the warning, said the threat emanated from his opposition to pro-Khalistan elements in Canada.
He said the threat continues since police patrol vehicles regularly monitor his home and a panic button has also been installed there.
The 2023 warning came less than two months after Gill, also president of the Friends of India-Canada Foundation, organised an event in Surrey for the then Indian High Commissioner to Ottawa Sanjay Kumar Verma in February. That event had to be cancelled due to the threat perception to Verma. It also came months before Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s statement in the House of Commons on September 18 last year that there were “credible allegations” of a potential link between Indian agents and the killing of pro-Khalistan figure Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey three months earlier. Nijjar was considered a terrorist by India but those charges were never tested in a Canadian court.
Gill said similar warnings have also been given to others who have taken an anti-Khalistan stand but they are unwilling to make those public.
In October this year, RCMP accused six Indian diplomats and officials of being linked to violent criminal activity in the country and served duty to warn notices to at least a dozen pro-Khalistan elements. That led to India withdrawing the six officials from Canada and expelling six Canadian diplomats, worsening the already difficult bilateral relationship.
