United States has charged Lawrence Bishnoi, the jailed leader of a criminal syndicate, and his North America-based associate, Satinderjeet Singh, alias “Goldy Brar,” with orchestrating the 2023 killing of Khalistani separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada.
According to a federal indictment unsealed in Los Angeles, Bishnoi and Brar directed the fatal shooting of Nijjar outside a Sikh temple in Surrey, a suburb of Vancouver, British Columbia, on June 18, 2023.
The indictment says Bishnoi directed the operation from an Indian jail cell using smuggled cellphones and provided a co-conspirator with a photograph and multiple addresses of Nijjar’s to facilitate the killing. Singh, a childhood friend of Bishnoi, allegedly directed the North American operations of the criminal group, known as the “Lawrence Bishnoi Organized Crime Group.”
No Allegation of Indian Government Involvement
Nijjar’s killing triggered a diplomatic crisis after then-Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said months later that Canadian authorities were “actively pursuing credible allegations” linking Indian government agents to the murder. New Delhi rejected the claim as absurd.
The U.S. indictment charging Bishnoi and Singh does not allege any Indian government role in the killing.
Canada Seeks to Rebuild Ties With India
Neither First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli nor any other official at a press conference in Los Angeles alleged that the Indian government was involved in or aware of the killing.
The charges against Bishnoi and Singh were part of a broader investigation by U.S. and Canadian authorities that charged 37 defendants tied to three organized crime groups with racketeering, extortion and drug trafficking, 24 of whom were arrested or already in custody, authorities said.
Canadian police in May 2024 arrested and charged four Indian nationals over Nijjar’s killing, and have said they were probing whether the men had ties to the Indian government. The U.S. indictment does not name the alleged shooters as defendants, referring to them only as co-conspirators.
Relations between Ottawa and New Delhi have thawed under Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who visited India in February on his first official trip and opened talks on a trade deal expected to be completed by November.
(With inputs from Reuters)
