India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks in New Delhi, India on Oct. 25.Adnan Abidi/Reuters
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is condemning violence in Canada that led police to make arrests after fights erupted between Hindu worshippers and pro-Khalistan Sikh demonstrators at temples in Ontario and British Columbia this past weekend.
Simmering tension between the South Asian religious groups boiled over into skirmishes in Brampton, Ont., and Surrey, B.C., where local police reported no serious injuries but said they arrested three men in each place on Sunday.
In the aftermath, Canadian politicians pressed for calm amid an increasingly charged political environment among the country’s Indian diaspora. But hundreds of Hindu protesters took to the street outside their Brampton temple Monday evening to decry the police response the day prior and show their support for Mr. Modi’s government.
Just before 7 p.m. Monday, Peel Regional Police posted on social media that after spotting weapons “within the demonstration” its riot squad was being sent in to disperse the crowd - warning anyone in the area they faced arrest if they stuck around.
Mr. Modi condemned Sunday’s violence in Brampton in a post on X, where he has more than 100 million followers.
“I strongly condemn the deliberate attack on a Hindu temple in Canada,” he wrote. “We expect the Canadian government to ensure justice and uphold the rule of law.”
The Indian Prime Minister added that he considered protests outside Hindu temples to be “cowardly attempts to intimidate our diplomats.”
Mr. Modi’s post was recirculated by the High Commission of India in Ottawa, whose diplomats announced this fall that they will be attending temples and community centres in several Canadian cities to help Indian nationals with paperwork involving pensions and other matters.
Friction between these communities is being generated, in part, by a growing diplomatic row between Ottawa and New Delhi over alleged foreign interference campaigns.
The weekend conflicts come just weeks after RCMP announced they had evidence of Indian officials’ involvement in homicides, extortion and violent crime on Canadian soil, which led to Canada expelling six Indian diplomats, and India expelling six Canadian diplomats in retaliation. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government has repeatedly accused Mr. Modi’s representatives of engaging in covert campaigns to repress and kill Sikh activists living in Canada.
These allegations are now contributing to protests outside the country’s houses of worship. “I’m really troubled by what’s happened in Brampton and Surrey yesterday. There needs to be a de-escalation,” Liberal Gary Anandasangaree, the Minister of Crown–Indigenous Relations, told reporters in Ottawa.
Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown is calling for new measures to keep the calm at temples.
“I want to see a municipal bylaw urgently passed to prohibit protests at places of worship,” Mr. Brown said on X. “The pro-India and pro-Khalistan sides who think it is appropriate to protest at a place of worship are completely wrong.”
Mr. Brown’s officials say he plans to bring forward a municipal motion seeking to block such protests on Nov. 13.
Brampton’s Hindu Sabha temple was the scene of a melee Sunday, with Peel Regional Police saying three men were arrested there and charged with a range of offences, including assault with a weapon, mischief and assaulting a police officer. Videos posted online showed fights between templegoers and pro-Khalistan protesters, with police failing to stop the two groups from engaging in a brawl using fists, flagpoles and placards.
Across the Rockies, in the Vancouver suburb of Surrey, the local RCMP detachment said three people were arrested – but not charged – at the Lakshmi Narayan Mandir (temple) during a similar pro-Khalistan protest Sunday of Indian consular staff offering services on the grounds. After the trio of Hindu devotees was arrested, 100 or more supporters went to the detachment to demand their release, which happened Sunday night around 8:30 p.m.
Satish Kumar, president of the temple in Surrey where the arrests occurred, said he respects the right of Khalistani activists to protest the government of India, but they should not do this at places of worship. He said that he and other community leaders were set to meet with the leader of the Surrey RCMP Monday afternoon to demand answers as to why their supporters were treated poorly and arrested the day prior.
The North American-based Sikhs for Justice group, which has previously run symbolic secessionist referendum votes in global South Asian hub cities asking Sikhs whether they want to create a new country known as Khalistan from Indian soil, helped organize last weekend’s protests in Brampton and Surrey. The group questioned India’s outreach efforts by saying that diplomats likely had the hidden aims of gathering intelligence.
Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, the group’s founder, said in an interview Monday that Mr. Modi’s pro-Hindu government in India is trading in disinformation by calling this past weekend’s violence an attack on Hindus.
“There wasn’t an ‘attack’ on a Hindu temple,” Mr. Pannun said. He denounced the Indian Prime Minister’s statement as “baseless, unsubstantiated and just India’s narrative to target pro-Khalistan Sikhs in Canada.”
Last month, the U.S. Department of Justice criminally charged a former member of the Indian government’s Cabinet Secretariat with a murder-for-hire plot. And that alleged plot was to be directed against Mr. Pannun, who lives in New York.
Mr. Pannun said grave allegations like these make Mr. Modi a hypocrite for publicly urging that the rule of law be upheld in North America. The Sikhs for Justice founder said that India’s Prime Minister should be considered “the person who is responsible for directing the transnational terrorism challenging the sovereignty of Canada and America.”
In 2023, Mr. Trudeau told Parliament that Canadian citizen Harjit Singh Nijjar, a pro-Khalistan Sikh murdered that year, had been targeted in Surrey as part of a plot that included agents of the governments of India.