GOLDY BRAR’S EXPLOSIVE CLAIM HAS REOPENED QUESTIONS CANADA AVOIDED WHILE TRUDEAU TURNED A MURDER INVESTIGATION INTO A DIPLOMATIC CRISIS. THE NIJJAR CONTROVERSY SHOWS WHY CANADA MUST SEPARATE PEACEFUL SIKH ADVOCACY FROM RADICALISATION, GANG WARS AND TRANSNATIONAL CRIME.
Gurpartap Singh MannIt always baffles me with questions in my mind: Who was Hardeep Singh Nijjar? Why was he so important that Canadian Prime Minister raked him up in the Canadian Parliament? Was he so important that he became instrumental in almost breaking of ties of Canada with India, where majority diaspora is from India? Was Nijjar a Sikh leader? Was he a saint? Or was he a drug and arms dealer as alleged by Goldy Brar?
That is why the new Hardeep Singh Nijjar development cannot be brushed aside. In a purported leaked conversation played on Ritesh Lakhi Unplugged, the gangster Goldy Brar claims that he and his team had Nijjar killed. He alleges that Nijjar supported people who recruited and blackmailed youngsters into selling drugs and becoming informers. The audio has not been independently authenticated, and Brar’s charge against Nijjar is not a proof. Then came another recording in which Arsh Dalla abuses Brar and threatens to eliminate him. Arsh Dalla admits his closeness to harddep Singh Nijjar. What are we hearing: religious leadership, or a gang war speaking the under shield language of community?
This is not merely a chatter on the YouTube. In July, the US Justice Department and FBI’s Operation Hard Ball charged Lawrence Bishnoi and Goldy Brar with ordering Nijjar’s assassination. Across three indictments, 37 people were charged, 24 arrested and about 1,000 kilograms of cocaine seized. These may not convictions yet, but murder, extortion and drugs across the diaspora make the organised-crime angle impossible to ignore.
Lets go back to June 18, 2023. Nijjar, who was president of Surrey’s Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara and a Khalistan activist, was shot outside the gurdwara. On September 18, Justin Trudeau told Parliament that Canadian agencies were pursuing “credible allegations of a potential link” between Indian government agents and the killing. India denied it. What followed was a painful chapter in the relation of two nations.
Diplomats were expelled, visas disrupted and the India–Canada relationship pushed into a deep freeze.
Canada has every right to investigate a murder on its soil and any foreign interference. But Trudeau took an intelligence input to the Parliament before evidence was properly verified. His minority government was then sustained by Jagmeet Singh’s NDP under a supply-and-confidence agreement. Trudeau allowed domestic Sikh politics to weigh too heavily on the India relationship. Nijjar was rapidly presented as a community leader, almost a martyr, while basic questions about the world around him still have remained unanswered.
Mark Carney has been more balanced. After the 2025 election, I had written that Jagmeet Singh’s defeat had opened a political space for Ottawa to reset relations. I had then argued for moving from discord to diplomacy and for an India–Canada intelligence pact against extremism, gang finance and transnational crime. Carney invited Narendra Modi to the G7 despite protests, restored high commissioners and resumed law-enforcement engagement. He also raised sovereignty and transnational repression.
That is statecraft: protect Canada without letting any diaspora lobby hold a bilateral relationship hostage.
The US indictment had named gangsters, not the Indian government or agents. A RCMP deputy commissioner said the July organised-crime investigation produced no evidence that Indian officials were charged or involved in those indictments. That does not erase Canada’s separate foreign-interference allegations. Nor does Brar’s recording prove Nijjar dealt drugs. Courts and evidence—not gangsters, governments or YouTube—must decide.
But Canada’s Public Safety establishment, RCMP and CSIS must clarify what they can. Who exactly was Nijjar? Only a gurdwara president and separatist organiser? Did agencies have intelligence about criminal associations? Did they verify or reject India’s dossiers? Is Brar’s drug allegation false, partly true, or deliberate gang propaganda? If Nijjar lived a camouflaged second life, evidence must be shown. A murdered man should neither be demonised without proof nor made a saint for political compulsion or convenience.
I read the comments under both Ritesh Lakhi videos. Some viewers declared Goldy a man of Indian agencies. Others call him a liar or traitor. Some glorify Arsh Dalla for threatening him. None of this is evidence. It shows how free thinking disappears when every fact must first pass a religious or political loyalty test.
I warned in “Adapt—Don’t Resist” that faith must not occupy every public space. In “Adapt or Be Rejected”, I wrote about young immigrants trapped in Desi bubbles, vulnerable to handlers, their asylum lawyers, and radicalisation. Operation Hard Ball shows where that road can end. Meanwhile, reported anti-Sikh hate crimes in the US rose about 25 per cent in 2025. Hate is never justified. But refusing to confront criminals who are hiding behind faith does not protect Sikhs, rather, it leaves ordinary Sikhs to face the backlash.
In the end I will conclude with that Faith is like a vessel. Keep filling it with prayer, humility, seva and discipline. The fuller it becomes, the stronger the person. Till then, it is beautiful. But every vessel has a rim. When faith spills over that rim onto roads, into political intimidation, flag wars and gang rivalries: the problem starts. It stops being only faith. It becomes power wearing religion as a cover.
Canada must protect Sikh citizens, expose gangsters and answer the uncomfortable questions. Faith should never become a shield for crime. And crime should never become an excuse to hate a faith. Keep the vessel full but do not let it spill. Community must decide with logical mind rather than myopic hatred.
Canada under the leadership of Mark Carney, must expose the truth about Nijjar. Let no pressure, whatsoever may come in the way of the truth, whatever it may be. (Writer is Ex Member PPSC)