Hardeep Singh Nigar declared his innocence to Trudeau in a 2016 letter

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Hardeep Singh Nigar, the slain Sikh chief who was on the middle of a diplomatic spat between Canada and India, denied the Indian authorities’s allegations that he was a terrorist in a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in 2016.

In an Interpol discover in 2016, Najjar was accused of being the chief of the Khalistan terror pressure, and a report within the Occasions of India claimed he was working coaching camps close to Mission, British Columbia. In the identical yr, India’s Central Bureau of Investigation issued an arrest warrant. For Al-Najjar, citing fees of making an attempt to trigger an explosion, making or possessing explosives with intent to hazard life or property, and making or possessing explosives beneath suspicious circumstances.

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Najjar denied all of the accusations and urged Trudeau to intervene on his behalf after the Interpol memorandum.

“I urge your administration to dispel the Indian authorities’s fabricated, baseless, fanciful and politically motivated allegations in opposition to me,” Najjar mentioned, including that India had “grossly abused its governmental energy.”

Najjar mentioned that the Indian authorities focused him and his household due to his help for a separatist motion in search of to create an unbiased Sikh homeland generally known as Khalistan.

Al-Najjar “by no means believed in, supported or participated in any violent exercise,” the letter mentioned. According to a Vancouver Sun report by Kim Bolan.

“Due to my campaigning for Sikh rights, I consider I’ve develop into the goal of the Indian authorities’s marketing campaign to label my human rights marketing campaign as terrorist actions,” the letter mentioned.

Najjar was killed in June, exterior the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in Surrey. No arrests have been made.

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Earlier this month, Trudeau mentioned there have been “credible allegations” that the Indian authorities was behind his killing. The Indian authorities denied Trudeau’s accusations.

“Any involvement of a international authorities within the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil is an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty,” Trudeau mentioned in a press release to the Home of Commons.

Al-Najjar, who labored as a plumber in British Columbia, was the top of the Sikh temple the place he was killed. The killing of Nigar, known as a “pillar” within the Sikh group, and India’s alleged involvement, sparked protests throughout Canada earlier this week.

In 2016, the yr Najjar wrote his letter to Trudeau, the Indian authorities claimed he was linked to the 2007 bombing in Punjab. Al-Najjar strongly denied these accusations.

“Mr. Prime Minister, I wish to draw your consideration to the truth that the Indian authorities’s marketing campaign to designate me as a terrorist started once I actively participated in a marketing campaign to gather signatures on a criticism submitted to the UN Human Rights Council,” Naggar’s letter mentioned.

“I’m a Sikh nationalist who believes in and helps the fitting of Sikhs to self-determination and the independence of Indian-occupied Punjab by a future referendum.”

Nagar additionally claimed that his father and brother have been arrested throughout his go to to India and he was warned to curb his “anti-India marketing campaign”.

– With further reporting from the Vancouver Solar

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