Fourteen bullets fired at a home near Victoria. An Edmonton building torched by arsonists with a red jerrycan. A 39-year-old found dead in a Winnipeg duplex.
The crimes are among several across Canada that were allegedly part of an Indian government campaign against activists and opponents of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Six diplomatic and consular officials posted at India’s foreign missions in Ottawa and its consulates in Toronto and Vancouver have been identified as persons of interest in the scheme.
On Monday, the Canadian government expelled them for their alleged roles in crimes that have mainly targeted members of the Khalistan movement that supports independence for India’s Sikh-majority Punjab.
But Global News has learned police have evidence the operation goes right to the top: It was allegedly approved by Modi’s right-hand man Amit Shah, India’s second most powerful politician.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with Home Minister Amit Shah, in Ahmedabad, India, May 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Ajit Solanki).
“I think there’s no question this was all coming from the top,” said Dan Stanton, a former Canadian Security Intelligence Service officer.
“I mean who would proceed with this, especially implicating the missions here in Canada without knowing it’s supported from the top?”
“I think rogue is highly unlikely.”
He noted that Modi had said in a speech in May, “This is the new India, the new India comes into your home to kill you.”
The RCMP took the extraordinary step on Monday of warning Canadians about India’s suspected involvement in “serious criminal activity in Canada.”
Working from India’s consulates and high commission in Ottawa, agents have been using extortion and cash to get individuals to conduct tasks for them, sources said.
Typically, members of the South Asian community were denied visas to return to India unless they did as they were instructed.
The jobs they were given included spying on individuals and Sikh organizations and relaying the information back to handlers at India’s diplomatic posts.
That intelligence was then fed back to India and used to target Khalistan activists and other opponents of the Modi government.
Organized crime groups based in India were tapped to carry out a range of attacks on the targets in Canada, ranging from arson and drive-by shootings to killings.
“Despite law enforcement action, the harm has continued, posing a serious threat to our public safety,” the RCMP said in its statement.
“We reached a point where we felt it was imperative to confront the government of India and inform the public about some very serious findings that have been uncovered through our investigations.”
The RCMP did not list the “multiple ongoing investigations” that are linked to the scheme, but Global News has confirmed some of them in cities across the country.
Among them are a series of extortions and arsons in Edmonton that police are investigating under the name Project Gaslight, and the murder of Sukhdool Singh Gill in Winnipeg on Sept. 20, 2023.
Others include the Sept. 2 shooting that targeted the Colwood, B.C., home of a Punjabi singer, and a similar drive-by shooting in Brampton, Ont., in February.
Inderjeet Singh Gosal, a pro-Khalistan activist in Brampton, Ont., said police have warned him his life is in danger.
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The Brampton home belongs to Inderjeet Singh Gosal, a Sikh-Canadian activist organizing a referendum for Khalistan independence.
He took over the job after his predecessor, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, was gunned down outside Surrey, B.C.’s Guru Nanak Sikh Temple temple on June 18, 2023.
Four suspects were arrested in Alberta and Ontario in May. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has linked the killing to the government of India. Police visited Gosal in August to warn him his life was also in danger.
In an interview, Gosal said the shooting at his home and the threat to his life were “100 per cent” part of the Indian government operation and that investigators had told him as much.
“That’s exactly what they were telling me,” he said. Investigators gave him “a lot” of information about the connections, he said, but he was not able to discuss the details publicly.
“The RCMP and CSIS, they obviously told me that yes, it’s directly co-ordinated to that,” he said when asked if his case was among those linked to Indian government agents in Canada.
He noted the response on social media to what has happened to him has also confirmed the political nature of the crimes. “They’re saying, yeah, this was a message, we’re sending you a message.”
“What I’m happy about is that the truth is coming out. It’s showing India’s true background, their true side,” he said. It’s really hurting them because it’s showing their true colours.
“It goes right to Modi’s right-hand man.”
A Hindu nationalist, Shah is a close confidant of Modi’s and helped secure the 2014 election victory that brought him and his Bharatiya Janata Party to power.
Shah was serving as home minister of Gujarat state when he was arrested in 2010 for the kidnapping and killing of a Muslim couple.
He denied it and, after three months in custody, was acquitted in 2014 and rose within the ranks of the BJP along with Modi.
He became Modi’s home minister in 2019, putting him in charge of internal security. The BJP website credits him with reducing terrorism incidents “to sporadic incidences.”
According to his profile on the BJP site, Shah “considers weak and lumpy security to be a major obstacle in the development of society, country and state.”
But he is also alleged to have signed off on the operation that targeted pro-Khalistan activists in Canada, even as India denies the allegations.
In a statement Monday, the Indian government said it “strongly rejects these preposterous imputations and ascribes them to the political agenda of the Trudeau Government that is centered around vote bank politics.”
Stewart.Bell@globalnews.ca