Sikhs, Spies and Murder: Investigating India’s alleged hit on foreign soil | Foreign Correspondent

REPORTER: I'm in the Indian state of Punjab, and a protest is happening about a killing that took place on the other side of the world. CANADIAN NEWSREADER: Breaking tonight, a stunning allegation. The Prime Minister accuses India of being behind the killing of a Canadian, on Canadian soil. The Narendra Modi government is being accused of assassinating a Sikh separatist on foreign soil. India says those claims are absurd. We will fight against our government. We will get our freedom. We will win. It will be clear that Indian Government has killed Hardeep Singh. India says this movement, fighting for an independent state called Khalistan, is a threat to national security. These protesters want answers. We're taking you to the heartland of this movement, considered so dangerous by the Indian Government, it's now at the centre of an international murder conspiracy. He is an intelligence man. Intelligence officer. (OVERLAPPING CONVERSATIONS) While we've been investigating how Indian authorities are treating this movement, agents have been pressuring us, too. Hi. I have to inform you that your permission was cancelled. You need to give us a reason for why you've suddenly decided not to allow us. The reason - I can't explain you that. (INDISTINCT CHATTER AND SHOUTING) Punjab, in India's north, is the heart of the Sikh community. (CHANTING ECHOES) It's home to the Golden Temple, the holiest site in the Sikh religion. There are around 26 million Sikhs globally, but they make up just 2% of India. Sikhism is one of the world's youngest religions, founded in Punjab over 500 years ago. Sikhs believe in one god, equality... ..and service to other people. Hello. Avani. Nice to meet you. I'm meeting the members of a group called Dal Khalsa, which wants to split from India and create its own independent Sikh nation, called Khalistan. Kanwar Pal Singh is one of their leaders. KANWAR PAL SINGH: So, we have to clean our foot before entering into the Golden Temple. Mm. This is the most sacred place of the Sikhism. The Modi government sees Dal Khalsa as a radical, extremist organisation. Its members are heavily monitored by Indian intelligence. Even at the temple, we're being watched. KANWAR PAL SINGH: At least six to eight persons from the intelligence department were accompanying us. They were, uh...they were just scanning us, what we are doing, what we are talking. How do you know they're intelligence...? You see them daily. Every protest, every function of Dal Khalsa, they cover, they come, they take notes, they make films, and they send it to the Government. We are under scanner of India. We want Punjab to be a separate, independent country. We want to become the masters of our own destiny. We want to rule as we are a sovereign people. The idea of Sikh independence was first raised in the 1600s to deal with persecution by the Muslim Mughal Empire. When the British left India in the 1940s, some Sikhs had hoped to gain their own nation. That didn't happen. The fight peaked in the 1980s, when separatists took over the Golden Temple to demand independence. The Indian army brutally stormed in with tanks, causing a seven-day shoot-out. It was called Operation Blue Star, and Indian authorities took back the temple. KANWAR PAL SINGH: You see these are the bullet marks. Wow. So, that's actually where they were shooting. Yeah. Memories of that dark time permeate every corner of this temple. The Government says more than 600 separatists and troops were killed in the shoot-out. But human rights groups estimate thousands of innocent pilgrims were caught in the crossfire. KANWAR PAL SINGH: They are sacrificed for the cause of Sikh religion and Sikh sovereignty. Tucked away in one of the many rooms of the Golden Temple, portraits stand as tributes to the separatists who were killed. Kanwar Pal was just 19 at the time, and knew many of these men personally. Watching the violence drove him to join the Khalistan movement. At that point, uh, we were angry. What Government did with us, it alienated us from the Government. We lost oneness with this country. Indira Gandhi was prime minister at the time and ordered the storming of the temple. In a retaliation that shocked the world, two of her Sikh bodyguards assassinated her. KANWAR PAL SINGH: I'm very proud of those two Sikh bodyguards. They took it as their religious obligation... ..to carry out and to finish our... ..what I can say is to punish the sinner, as Indira Gandhi sinned. Indira Gandhi's assassination led to attacks on Sikhs across India. Thousands were killed. Less than a year later, in response to Operation Blue Star, Canadian authorities accused Sikh separatists of detonating a bomb on an Air India flight, travelling from Montreal, killing all 329 people on board. KANWAR PAL SINGH: When states come, crushing you with tanks... ..and bullets and, uh, bombs, what else, uh, option do you have, other than to defend yourself and retaliate and resist? Resistance is in the Sikh nature. We never give in. We never give in. We stand against the repression and we fight and fight and fight. (CHANTING ECHOES) For years, the movement has been stagnant. But the recent mysterious death of Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada has revived the fight. It was in the car park of a Sikh temple like this that Hardeep Singh Nijjar was shot dead in June last year, in Vancouver. He walked out of the temple, got in his pick-up truck, and police say two men in dark clothes and hoods shot him several times. He died then and there. At the time, it seemed like a local murder, but it's turned into a major international dispute. By day, Hardeep was a plumber, married, with two sons, in Canada. By night, he was one of the leaders of an influential global Khalistan group, Sikhs for Justice. India has banned many of the separatist movements, so the Sikh diaspora is leading the fight. To prove their support for an independent state, they're holding unofficial referendums in Western nations. Hardeep was organising the Canadian vote. Who killed Hardeep Singh Nijjar? India. India wanted him back. India wanted his extradition. When India failed to get Hardeep Singh Nijjar legally, they killed him illegally. There's been so much global attention on the life of Hardeep Singh Nijjar. I'm heading to his village in Punjab, called Bhar Singh Pura. I want to find out who he really was. The house Hardeep grew up in is still on this potato and wheat farm. Gurcharan Singh has worked for the Nijjar family and shows us around. So, this is the house. Right. Mm. Lived here. He lived here. Faded dusty photos from Hardeep's life are still displayed inside. Gurcharan reveals to us that Indian police and intelligence searched this house and their village in the months leading up to Hardeep Singh Nijjar's killing. Hardeep's uncle, Himmat, still works on the family farm. He watched Hardeep grow up during the anti-Sikh violence in the late '80s and '90s. News of Hardeep's death shocked the village. Hardeep's uncle says his nephew wasn't a terrorist, despite the Modi government's claims. JUSTIN TRUDEAU: In no uncertain terms, any involvement of a foreign government in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil is an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty. It is contrary to the fundamental rules by which free, open and democratic societies conduct themselves. Over the past number of weeks, Canadian security agencies have been actively pursuing credible allegations of a potential link between agents of the Government of India and the killing of a Canadian citizen, Hardeep Singh Nijjar. Pankaj Saran was working in India's national security agency in the lead up to Nijjar's death. He's since left, but it's rare someone from that secretive department sits down with media on this issue. I think we were all surprised in India, when we watched and we heard, uh, because, uh, it was dramatic. The Indian Government, I think, responded the way anyone would have expected them to. Basically they said, "Look, this... "We don't know what they're saying," and, um, you know, "This is not our policy." India had labelled Hardeep Singh Nijjar a terrorist, accusing him of a range of crimes, like meeting militant leaders in Pakistan, flying ammunition from there to India through paragliders and plotting killings in India. Pankaj Saran says Hardeep Singh Nijjar was on their radar. India wanted him and members of his group extradited. This was something that, uh, had been, uh, shared along with many other dossiers. We've had, uh, I believe, almost 25 extradition requests that have been put across to the Canadians. And we have basically told them, "This is all the material that there is "and all we are asking you is to return them back to India "so that they can be tried as per law." Was Hardeep Singh Nijjar a threat to India? They threatened India's unity and territorial integrity and, therefore, they... ..they strike at the foundations of the Indian state. Pankaj Saran says protecting India's national interests is paramount. Do you think there's a scenario where Indian agents are justified in killing overseas citizens? Theoretically speaking, if someone has to defend your country against threats which you perceive to be... ..are of your core national interest, then all means are fair. This is the practice that has been followed since time immemorial, by every nation on earth. This is nothing unique or specific to India. So, at a conceptual, theoretical level, of course, every nation has the responsibility to protect and defend itself. For months, Canada's allegations against the Indian Government seemed to be isolated. Then, at the end of last year, another stunning allegation came to light. US authorities charged a man with plotting to kill a Sikh separatist in New York, saying he was acting on the orders of an Indian agent. The alleged plot failed. I can say that this is something we take very seriously. Um, a number of us have raised this directly with the Indian Government. Canada said this gave its claims legitimacy. The news coming out of the United States further underscores what we've been talking about from the very beginning, which is that India needs to take this seriously. Sikh separatists in Canada, the US and the UK have been warned by authorities in their countries that their lives are in danger. While we've been investigating this story, we've discovered that officers from Australia's intelligence agency, ASIO, have met up with Sikh separatists in Australia as well. Samar Kohli is one of the leaders of the Khalistan movement in Australia. He's been working with Hardeep Singh Nijjar's group, Sikhs for Justice. We met at a cafeteria and they had... ..at that time, they had basic questions on the referendum - what the referendum is about, whether...do we feel that Australian... ..um, that there's a foreign interference? Um, to which...which I said yes, and I could give examples and I gave them a couple of examples there. He says ASIO officers have met with him since the killing. I think a week after the assassination, I met with ASIO again and, "Well, I told you this is going to happen." And then the question was whether we feel that threat is real in Australia. And I think that everything is possible. The way they use the terminology is, "We are aware of what is happening. "We are monitoring everything. "We know who the key figures are, "and we are making sure all those key figures are safe." When Narendra Modi met his Australian counterpart, he urged him to take action against Khalistan supporters. The Australian Government has had to walk a fine line, defending the right of Sikh separatists to protest. But in the lead-up to the Khalistan referendum, Hindu temples were vandalised in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne. The Australian Government promised to take action. Documents obtained under Freedom of Information show that Australian police in Queensland believe the graffiti may have been done by Hindu groups to frame Sikh separatists. They say similar vandalism in Victoria could have also been done by the same person. But Queensland Police say there's no current admissible evidence to link any Hindu person to the crime. They damaged their own temple and then they use it as a propaganda. Sikhs have no interest in that nonsense. The word Khalistan has been turned into something so bad. We just want our freedom. (VEHICLE HORNS HONK) In Punjab, it's India's Republic Day, a celebration of independence from Britain. If the overseas killing was designed to put off the Khalistan movement, it looks like it's failed. Kanwar Pal Singh and his Sikh separatist group are getting ready to protest. KANWAR PAL SINGH: People are being killed on foreign soils, extrajudicially. They energise us. They...they give us enough reasons to keep our fight going. (HORN HONKS) Indian intelligence is already watching, even as the separatists travel to the march. (SPEAKS LOCAL LANGUAGE) He is an intelligence man. He was waiting for... Protesters gather at a local Sikh temple. The march is heavily organised. Every protester gets a sign or a black flag. (SHOUTING) So, how old are you? And why have you come here today? You've brought your little son here to this protest. Why did you think to bring your little child as well? (SIREN WAILS) (CHANTING CONTINUES) Thousands are on the streets. They've stopped traffic. (CHANTING CONTINUES) As the day goes on, the presence of the Government's intelligence officers becomes harder to ignore. We just left the protest and we had someone come up to us at the end who said that they were a part of India's Criminal Intelligence Department, and they asked us questions about why we spoke to people at the protest, who we spoke to. And it's just so clear that everything to do with Khalistan is so closely monitored, even to the extent that we, as journalists, are being questioned about this. It's our last day in Punjab, and we're heading to the border with Pakistan, where the seeds for this movement were planted. Every day, thousands of tourists go to a public ceremony at the border. But Indian authorities approach as we arrive. Hi. I'm the one... Oh, was I... I've been talking with.... I've been talking to you on the phone? A group of Indian officers prevent us from entering the border region. But it's open to tourists to... Why can't we just go in and film? Filming is not allowed. But I just don't understand what's changed in the last hour. I was talking to you last week. You asked, "How many people are coming?" I've given you all the information. Everything's organised, so I don't understand. We've come all the way here. Our crew's here. You need to give us a reason for why you've suddenly decided not to allow us. The reason - I can't explain you that. But I have been directed to inform you that your permission was cancelled and... We're at the India-Pakistan border. We've come here to shoot this daily ceremony. It's a public event. We were given permission by Indian authorities to do this. But as we've arrived, we've been told that we cannot do this. You can probably see, over here, a police officer has come. He's told us that we are not going to go inside. It's just really bizarre. The tension has been building every day that we've been shooting this story. Earlier today, I got a call from a government official, asking us questions about where we've been, about our crew. It's clear that we're being really monitored and that there's concern about the story that we're doing. We made several requests to India's Foreign Minister, S. Jaishankar, and Narendra Modi's National Security Adviser, Ajit Doval, but we didn't hear back. Ajay Sahni has been tracing the Khalistan movement for nearly 30 years. He says we should be looking at this in light of the upcoming election. Now, this is very good propaganda for both sides. The Khalistanis are able to project themselves as... ..you know, exaggerate their victimhood, project themselves as targets of Indian state atrocity and state excess. As far as the current Indian Government is concerned, well, it serves their narrative of a muscular state, a state that will, uh - in language that has been used by the leadership - that will go into their homes and kill them. So, this feeds the profile that the present regime seeks to project among its supporters and in the forthcoming election. KANWAR PAL SINGH: We are working as a lawful organisation. There is no ban on us to date. Our office is... ..24-hour office is running, our activities are transparent and very lawful and whatever we are doing is... is a...is a open... is an open secret. We have nothing to hide and, yes, we strongly advocate the cause of Khalistan, an independent Punjab. Are you worried for your life? No, I'm not scared. It is better if an enemy kills me. It's all up to the god. And you can ask Mr Modi also. (CHANTING ECHOES) Captions by Red Bee Media Copyright Australian Broadcasting Corporation