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Hardeep Singh Nijjar was in a hurry to leave the temple. It was Father’s Day and his wife and two sons were waiting for him.
On the way out He named his 21-year-old son the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara, Nijjar’s Sikh Temple in Surrey, British Columbia. The family had made pizza, Balraj Singh Nijjar told his father, and had prepared the sweet pudding seviyan, his favorite dessert.
“Have dinner ready,” Nijjar said to his son. “I get home.”
But outside the gurdwara there were three men waiting. They had masks. They were armed.
Less than ten minutes later, the phone in the Nijjar house rang again.
“Have you heard?” a family friend asked the son. “Something happened in the gurdwara. Your father was shot.”
No arrests were made in the brazen assassination of Nijjar, the temple’s 45-year-old president, on June 18. But From the start, his family and friends in the local Sikh community were all but certain who was behind the brazen attack: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Indian government.
Nijjar was an outspoken leader of the separatist Khalistan movement, which aims to establish an independent Sikh state in India’s Punjab region. The movement is banned in India.
On Monday, exactly three months after Nijjar’s murder, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told the House of Commons that investigators were investigating “credible allegations” linking Nijjar’s murder to agents of The Indian Government.
India’s foreign ministry rejected the claim, saying it was an attempt to distract from the real problem: Canada is harboring Indian dissidents who New Delhi considers terrorists. Each country has since expelled a top diplomat from the other.
Nijjar, a Canadian citizen born in India, ran a plumbing business in Surrey, a suburb of Vancouver. But it was his leadership in Khalistan Movement that attracted the attention of India’s security services.
In July 2022, India’s National Investigation Agency accused him of conspiring to murder a Hindu priest in Punjab and described him as a “fugitive terrorist”. The NIA, India’s anti-terrorism agency, published his home address in Surrey and announced a reward of 1 million rupees – about $12,000 – for information leading to his arrest.
Nijjar’s family and friends say he was committed to a peaceful and democratic path a Sikh homeland. Before his death, he organized a referendum in the Sikh diaspora to gauge support for Khalistan. More than 100,000 people came to the gurdwara to vote this month, community members say.
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Balpreet Singh Boparai, legal counsel for the World Sikh Organization of Canada, said Canadian security agencies have been aware of threats to Nijjar’s security for more than a year. Boparai said he has communicated his fears for Nijjar’s safety to Canadian law enforcement as early as the summer of 2022 and just a few weeks before the man’s murder.
“Obviously not enough has been done,” Boparai said. His organization described the killing as a failure by Canadian authorities.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police declined to respond to a question from The Washington Post on Tuesday about whether it warned the Sikh leader of threats to his life or protected him from his death. Eric Balsam, a spokesman for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, said he could not discuss the issue publicly.
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Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, Nijjar’s lawyer, said Nijjar called him the day before his death and told him he had been warned by Canadian authorities about threats to his life. Pannun said authorities had not provided specific details.
And on the day of Nijjar’s death, Boparai spoke to members of his own gurdwara in Brampton, Ontario, about a recent series of murders of prominent Sikh leaders.
“It looks like Hardeep Singh Nijjar could be next on the hit list,” Boparai recalled Saying.
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On June 18, Nijjar got up early and spent his Sunday in prayer in his gurdwara, as usual.
His sons, 20 and 21, made sure they were awake before he left so they could give him his Father’s Day present: a new one a pair of jeans.
“You know I’m on a diet,” Nijjar joked, according to Balraj. “These probably won’t fit me anymore.”
“Once you lose weight, I’ll buy you a new pair,” Balraj promised.
“Are you sure you have the money?” Nijjar asked, mocking his older son as he often did.
At the Gurdwara he gave his weekly address to the congregation, often speaking about the threats against Sikhs around the world. He urged the community to spread their message not through violence but through voting. “We don’t need to grab AK-47s,” he said in Punjabi. “We just have to fill the ballots with yes or no.”
“We believe we live free in Canada and the United States, but are we?” he asked in the speech, which was videotaped by the gurdwara. “Do we think of the murdered, our martyrs? We must come together and demand our freedom.”
Just before 8:30 p.m., he left the gurdwara along with a friend, Gurmeet Singh Toor, a 52-year-old truck driver. They talked about upcoming programs at the gurdwara, wished each other farewell and walked to their cars.
Two minutes later, Toor said, he heard gunshots.
He rushed out of his car and ran towards Nijjar’s pickup truck, which was about 300 meters away. The driver’s side Window was broken. Several bullet holes pierced the door. And Nijjar lay slumped on his right hand, bleeding from his left arm, from his chest, and from his head.
As the temple members gathered Two masked men set off on foot around the truck, crying and screaming. Toor and a few others pursued them, but it was too late. They reached a waiting car, which police later described as a 2008 Toyota Camry, which chased them away.
Police later described the two as larger men wearing face coverings. The men and a third suspect, the driver of the getaway car, waited in the area for at least an hour before the murder, police said. There were no arrests.
As Balraj rushed with his mother and brother At the gurdwara, he tried to call his father. There was no answer.
When they got there, they found a crowd of people gathered around an area cordoned off by police. Then Balraj saw his father’s truck.
Family friends tried to hug and comfort the young man, but he was having none of it at the moment. He focused on caring for his mother and younger brother.
The news quickly spread throughout the local Sikh community. J Singh, a lawyer and gurdwara member, was out for Father’s Day dinner with his family when he heard the news. They left the restaurant and drove to the Gurdwara. They found mourners crying, waving and weeping Chanting “Long live Khalistan!”
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“We knew immediately that this had to be the Indian government,” said J Singh.
Nijjar’s activism went beyond Sikh separatism, his son said. He encouraged his Sikh colleagues to speak out about injustices against other minority groups. He met with indigenous peoples and took part in pro-Muslim rallies. Balraj said.
When Afghan Sikhs arrived in Canada, he donated blankets and food. When the country was ravaged by forest fires, he sent first aid kits. When surrounding communities were flooded, he helped organize a helicopter for emergency relief.
In the months after Nijjar’s death, his son was reluctant to speak publicly. He was certain that the Indian government was behind the murder, but refrained from publicly accusing it. He hoped Canadian authorities would find enough evidence to bring the allegations to light.
“The truth will emerge on its own,” he said.
On Monday evening, after Trudeau’s announcement, Balraj stood before reporters outside his father’s home Gurdwara speaks publicly for the first time.
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Amanda Coletta and Maham Javaid contributed to this report.
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