Inderjeet Singh Gosal stands next to a window with a bullet hole in Brampton, Ontario on Feb. 14, 2024.Christopher Katsarov/The Globe and Mail
Peel Regional Police are investigating whether growing tensions between opponents and supporters of an independent Sikh state in India are behind a shooting at a house in a Toronto suburb, the second gun attack on a Sikh activist’s home in Canada this month.
Investigators say they’re probing the Monday incident, in which shots were fired overnight through a window of a house in Brampton, a city with a large and politically active Sikh community. The home is owned by Inderjeet Singh Gosal, an organizer of a rally in support of a separate Sikh homeland that would be known as Khalistan. The demonstration is planned for Saturday outside the Consulate General of India in Toronto. The house, which is under construction, was unoccupied at the time.
RCMP in Surrey, B.C., meanwhile, are investigating the overnight shooting on Feb. 1 at the home of Simrinjeet Singh, a rally organizer and friend of slain Khalistan activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar. Mr. Nijjar was killed by gunmen in Surrey in June, 2023, and his unsolved homicide has strained relations between Canada and India, with Ottawa alleging that Indian government agents ordered the assassination on Canadian soil.
Friction is intensifying between Indian diaspora communities in North America over a worldwide referendum on a breakaway state in India’s northern Punjab region, home to more than 27 million Sikhs. The Khalistan campaign is strongly opposed by some Hindu groups, who accuse those behind it of using violence and terror to tear their country apart. Sikh activists, meanwhile, say Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is inflaming anti-Sikh sentiment to shore up support from his Hindu nationalist political base.
Mr. Gosal is a close associate of New York-based lawyer Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, whose group Sikhs for Justice is behind the referendum on Sikh independence from India. In November, U.S. authorities foiled an assassination plot targeting Mr. Pannun and unsealed an indictment that alleged an Indian government official had paid underworld hitmen to carry out the killing of multiple prominent Sikhs in North America.
Mr. Gosal said Sikh activists across Canada feel under threat from opponents of the Khalistan movement. Many of those threats come from anonymous accounts on social media, he said.
“It’s not a coincidence,” he told The Globe and Mail. “We’ve been getting threats all the time, whether we’re advocating for the cause or just talking about rallies that are going to be taking place. But there’s so many of them, I didn’t take them seriously.”
A Peel police spokesman said the force’s criminal investigations unit is aware of Mr. Gosal’s affiliation with Khalistani politics and is probing whether that played a role in the shooting at his house.
“It’s too early to speculate on any link at this point in the investigation, but that is an aspect of this that we are pursuing,” Constable Tyler Bell-Morena said.
Mr. Gosal said that while he’s taking precautions, the shooting will not deter his activism for Sikh independence from India.
“If they think this is going to scare me, or if they think I’m supposed to go run and hide, or this will shut me up, they can think again. This doesn’t faze me at all,” he said. “If this is the cost, I’m prepared for that. I will push this Khalistan referendum until the day I die.”
A bullet hole in the window of a home owned by Inderjeet Singh Gosal in Brampton on Feb. 14, 2024.Christopher Katsarov/The Globe and Mail
Mr. Gosal’s family is well-known in the Sikh community for their support for the Khalistani cause. His father, Harpal Singh Gosal, was detained by Indian police in 1994 on a visit to India and spent nearly two years in prison there. Indian authorities said he was arrested under the country’s anti-terrorist laws, but he was ultimately released under pressure from Canada. His family says he was tortured while in custody.
His son, 34, is sometimes referred to as “Pannun’s bodyguard” because he is often seen with the lawyer when he’s travelling in Canada. Several hours after a bullet was fired into the house in Brampton, a prominent pro-India account on the social-media platform X claimed Mr. Gosal had been shot dead “by unknown gunmen in Canada,” which it said was a “message to Pannun handlers.”
Simrinjeet Singh, the Surrey-based activist whose residence was fired upon earlier this month, is well-known as a Sikh fundraiser in his community. He helped organize a pro-Khalistan demonstration at the Indian consulate in Vancouver on Jan. 26. He’s also a director of B.C.-based non-profit North American Sikhs Aid, which has links to the Khalistan movement. The group’s federal certificate of incorporation pledges to give all its assets to Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara, Mr. Nijjar’s place of worship, if the non-profit is dissolved.
Two teenagers have been arrested in that shooting, but charges have yet to be laid.