The “mysterious” death of anti-Khalistani activist Sukhi Chahal in California, comes at a time when the Sikh separatist movement probably sees more action overseas than in India. At its murderous peak between 1981 and 1993, more than 21,000 people were killed before it was comprehensively defeated.
The figures bear this out: between 2008 and 2015, according to the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), no fatalities occurred in the name of the movement. However, a change is visible between 2016 and 2024, when there have been Khalistani-linked fatalities every year with a total of 22 fatalities within this period.
Ajai Sahni of the SATP told StratNewsGlobal that such killings are not conducted by ideologically-driven Khalistani terrorists but by organised gangsters associated and tasked by the Khalistani extremists who are “global terrorist-gangsters.”
Some of them are in Pakistan, but many others are located in Canada, the US, the UK and so on, where they have acquired asylum after claiming threat to their lives in India. Two years back, India’s Home Ministry released a list of 28 of its most wanted terrorist-gangsters in these countries. Associates of these groups have been arrested in Italy, Spain, and Germany.
In June, the Canadian Security & Intelligence Service (CSIS) confirmed for the first time that Khalistani extremists are using Canadian soil for fund raising and organising violent activities in India.
In its 2024 report, the CSIS warned that “Since the mid-1980s, the politically motivated violent extremist threat in Canada has manifested primarily through Canada-based Khalistani extremists seeking to use and support violent means to create a nation state called Khalistan largely within Punjab, India.”
The Indian government is hopeful that whether in Canada or elsewhere, governments will cooperate with India in curbing the activities of these extremists.
(This Article was written by Tisya Sharma, an Intern at StratNewsGlobal)
