US Sikh activist, goal of assassination plot, says India nonetheless making an attempt to kill him : NPR

It’s a cellphone name Gurpatwant Singh Pannun remembers effectively. It was June 17, 2023. After enjoying cellphone tag for a day, he and his shut aide in Canada lastly managed to attach.

“He advised me that he was knowledgeable by the Canadian intelligence officers that there’s a critical risk to his life and he is perhaps killed,” Pannun recalled.

On that decision, his aide, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, stated that assassins have been coming for Pannun as effectively. The dialog is seared into Pannun’s reminiscence due to what Nijjar advised him — but in addition as a result of it was the final time the 2 males spoke.

The next day, gunmen shot Nijjar useless within the parking zone of a Sikh temple outdoors Vancouver, Canada. Canadian authorities have arrested 4 Indian nationals in reference to the homicide.

Nijjar’s warning for Pannun, a twin U.S.-Canadian citizen, additionally proved prescient. 5 months later, the U.S. Justice Division introduced it had foiled a plot to assassinate Pannun in New York Metropolis. An Indian nationwide was charged within the alleged murder-for-hire scheme, and has pleaded not responsible.

Nijjar’s killing and the purported plan to assassinate Pannun are a part of a broader pattern around the globe during which overseas governments search to silence critics abroad, together with in the US.

Final week, prosecutors introduced expenses in opposition to a brand new defendant in Pannun’s case: a former Indian intelligence officer, Vikash Yadav, who allegedly orchestrated the plot.

In the previous few years, the Justice Division says it has foiled a minimum of 4 assassination plots tied to a overseas energy. Three of these allegedly hyperlink again to Iran, together with one concentrating on Iranian-American activist and journalist Masih Alinejad. The fourth — allegedly concentrating on Pannun — entails India.

The Indian authorities denies any involvement in Nijjar’s killing or the purported plot in opposition to Pannun.

After the U.S. introduced expenses within the Pannun case, India arrange its personal inside inquiry to analyze. Simply over per week in the past, Indian officers have been in Washington for conferences to debate the case and for either side to supply an replace on their respective investigations.

The State Division referred to as the conferences “productive.” The Indian Embassy didn’t reply to a request for remark.

“Nicely-documented” threats from India

Pannun, who was born in India however moved to the U.S. in 1992, advised NPR earlier this yr that the risk to his life got here as no shock.

“I’ve been threatened immediately by the Indian parliamentarians whereas sitting within the Indian parliament,” he stated. “They’ve said that we’re going to kill Pannun, even when now we have to do a surgical strike. These are well-documented, the statements of the federal government officers.”

Specifically, he factors to remarks Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made a number of occasions in recent times, together with early this July in India’s parliament.

“As we speak, submit 2014, India enters your own home and kills you,” Modi stated earlier than lawmakers. “Carries out surgical strikes. Carries out air strikes.”

In Pannun’s view, Modi’s risk about how India offers with its perceived enemies is directed at individuals like him.

Pannun is a Sikh separatist. He’s a number one determine within the Khalistan motion, which needs to create an unbiased Sikh homeland carved out from northern India. He and his group, Sikhs for Justice, have been spearheading a world referendum for independence.

Khalistan referendum marketing campaign

Pannun is a practising legal professional. At his legislation workplace in Queens, containers of case information and authorized books lined the partitions. His authorized work pays the payments, however a lot of his time he dedicates to the Khalistan trigger.

In his workplace, he has a inexperienced display arrange and digicam for the movies he produces and posts on-line for the marketing campaign.

Behind his desk hung a yellow and blue Khalistan flag. On the wall was a framed image of the Golden Temple in Amritsar, India, the holiest website in Sikhism.

Pannun and Nijjar first labored collectively to doc the occasions surrounding the Indian army’s assault on the temple in 1984, generally known as Operation Blue Star, and the federal government’s bloody, almost decade-long effort to stamp out an armed Sikh insurgency combating for independence. 1000’s have been killed.

The 2 males then shifted their focus to the long run and began the Khalistan referendum marketing campaign. The concept is to have Sikhs around the globe vote on the query of making an unbiased Sikh state. It’s an unofficial referendum, and never legally binding.

Pannun has devoted his life to the marketing campaign. He advised his household years in the past that his advocacy work would put him at odds with India’s authorities.

“I’ve advised them very clearly what it could entail and the place it might probably lead,” he stated. “That’s why after we are speaking about assassination makes an attempt and killings and threats, that doesn’t come as a shock to us. That doesn’t come as a shock to the household.”

“Survive to the end line”

The Modi authorities in 2020 designated Pannun and Nijjar terrorists for his or her separatist work.

Pannun rejects the allegation. He stated he follows the legislation, and that his marketing campaign is a peaceable, democratic course of.

India’s response, he stated, has been to come back after him, and that has compelled him to look over his shoulder.

“That’s how I’m going to outlive to the end line,” he stated.

The alleged assassination plot was not a one-off. He stated there are lively threats in opposition to his life proper now. That hazard has not compelled him to finish his separatist work, however it has compelled him to take precautions.

At his workplace, a safety workforce screens guests with a metallic detector. Physique guards ferry him to and from work. He had safety earlier than the alleged plot, he stated, however he’s beefed it up because the case was charged final yr.

“As we speak, what you see may be very, very apparent,” he stated of his safety element. “This can be a message that I’m giving that I’m not on the market to do it in suicide mode. I’m going to proceed to marketing campaign and I’m going to proceed to guard myself.”

Nonetheless, the risk on his life has altered, to a level, how he operates. The interview with NPR was in his workplace, partially, as a result of it’s safe.

“I can’t simply abruptly take a automotive and leap within the automotive and go wherever,” he stated. “That’s what I’ve been suggested by my safety particulars. That’s the place you get killed.”

He’s modified his residence a number of occasions because the alleged plot was foiled. He doesn’t go to eating places a lot. He stated he hasn’t been to the grocery retailer in years; he will get issues delivered as an alternative. And he is curtailed his on-the-ground marketing campaign appearances.

Boycotting Indian-owned companies

He stays very lively on-line, although, and often posts movies on Instagram. A few of them present pro-Khalistan rallies, whereas others provide heated challenges in opposition to India or Indian officers.

In a single from final November, Pannun declares: “Sikhs are dealing with existential risk beneath the successive India regimes.”

“We’re going to goal India,” he provides. “From Air India to made in India, we’re going to floor all the pieces.”

Some Indian media shops interpreted that as a risk in mild of the 1985 bombing of an Air India passenger jet flying from Canada to India that killed greater than 300 individuals. A Canadian Sikh was discovered responsible in 2003 for involvement within the bombing. A Canadian courtroom acquitted two others.

Pannun pushed again, calling that interpretation of his video an “Indian narrative,” and saying he was calling for a Sikh boycott of Indian-owned companies.

“The target behind it’s that I need the (Sikh) neighborhood to cease funding their very own genocide,” he stated. “I need the neighborhood to not spend a dime on Indian-owned companies.”

Breaking apart the Indian state

He’s additionally come beneath criticism over posters with the phrases “Kill India” and the names and photographs of Indian officers that the placards declare have been concerned in Nijjar’s killing. One of many officers pictured was Sanjay Kumar Verma, India’s excessive commissioner, who was among the many six Indian diplomats lately expelled from Canada.

Pannun stated his objective is to interrupt up the Indian state.

“I say to kill Modi politics. We’re in America. We are saying ‘kill Biden politics,’ we are saying ‘kill Trump politics,’” Pannun stated. “’Kill India’ means balkanize India. India isn’t a human being. India is in a union of states. We need to balkanize India.”

A few of his posts on social media are about his late colleague and buddy, Nijjar. His assassination, Pannun stated, has left a gap.

“You are feeling the vacuum, however then you definately additionally get the power and the braveness: what Nijjar stood for, for what he gave his life, for what he has spent the final 15, 16 years with us,” he stated.

However Pannun additionally stated there’s no time to sit down again and grieve. There’s work to be achieved, a marketing campaign to run, regardless of the dangers.

“I’d fairly take a bullet in my head than cease the Khalistan referendum marketing campaign,” he stated.