Canada: Sikhs for Justice protest outside Indian consulate in Toronto

TORONTO: Members of Sikhs for Justice staged a protest outside the Indian consulate in Toronto, Canada on Friday.

The organisation demanded the closure of all Indian consulates across the North American country as the Narendra Modi-led government assassinated a Sikh separatist.

Read more: US charges second Indian over plot to kill Sikh separatist

A spokesperson for Sikhs for Justice, Kuljeet Singh, stated “we believe that India poses a threat to Canada’s sovereignty and freedom of expression”.

The protest comes amidst high poltical and diplomatic tensions between Canada and India as the former blasted the South Asian nation of carrying out an extrajudicial killing on its soil.

Previously, Sikhs for Justice penned a letter to the United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken. In the letter, the organisation called for an action against violence by the Indian government against the Sikh community; in particular, the Indian government’s involvement in extra judicial killing of Khalistan supporters.

Khalistan movement is a movement to create a spate state for Sikhs in Punjab. New Delhi has over the decades responded in increasingly violent ways against the Sikhs’ struggle for independence, including attacking their holiest sites, the Golden Temple in 1984 in a military offensive called the Operation Blue Star.

The letter criticised the United States’ “quiet diplomacy” with India, arguing that it encouraged the hardliner Modi’s administration to continue with its human rights abuses.

While Canada responded quite strongly to the extrajudicial killing of its citizens of Sikh origin by Indian government, the United States, on the other hand, gave a rather underwhelming response to the attempted assassination of another Khalistan supporter and a US citizen within its borders.

The lukewarm response by the United States did not attempt to even outright condemn the attempted assassination of one of its citizen, where in past it reacted strongly to Russian government assassinations in mainland Europe.

Read more: US charges ex-Indian intelligence official in foiled Sikh separatist murder plot

While the North American superpower charged two Indian intelligence officers for the failed assassination, there has been nigh on silence from the political quarter.