'People are frightened': Sikh activists chilled by arrest of men brandishing loaded gun, Indian flag at anti-India protest

Sikh independence activists say they’re used to intense online debates about their cause, up to and including threats of violence.

But when men in a pickup truck festooned with the Indian flag arrived at an anti-Indian government gathering this month toting a semi-automatic pistol, they were stunned, says Jay Grewal, a director of the group Sikhs for Justice.

Police eventually carried out a dramatic arrest in the Brampton, Ont., parking lot, charging five men with firearms offences after recovering a loaded handgun from their vehicle.

Witnesses say one of the men was asking to see the event’s promoter, who earlier received anonymous death threats over a video he had posted plugging the protest. The demonstrators were marshalling in Brampton before travelling to the actual demonstration at India’s consulate in downtown Toronto.

Grewal believes the incident marks a troubling new turn in the ongoing conflict between Indo-Canadians for and against a separate Sikh homeland — known as Khalistan — in south Asia.

“Everybody’s on edge. There is a belief that there are people willing to engage in acts of violence against Khalistanis on Canadian soil,” he said. “Many people are shocked and frightened that this may happen again.”

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The episode also comes as the Indian government steps up its campaign against Sikhs for Justice and the group’s plan to hold a non-binding referendum on the independence issue, Grewal notes.

Although being carried out internationally, the referendum movement is largely being organized in Canada.

India recently declared the New York-based lawyer who heads the organization a terrorist , and has banned the group and its websites in India. A day before the Ontario incident, Punjab’s fiery chief minister, Capt. Amarinder Singh, dared the organization’s leader to come there, saying “I will teach you a lesson.”

But a Toronto-area Punjabi-language journalist and critic of the Khalistani movement said he doubts the incident occurred as Grewal describes it.

It’s one thing for rival groups to clash at an actual protest site, but unheard of for counter-demonstrators, armed or not, to confront activists when they are merely on their way to a rally, said Balraj Deol.

It’s even possible Sikhs for Justice staged the whole thing, he alleged, though there’s no evidence of that.

“It is very hard to believe what Sikhs for Justice is saying is true,” said Deol. “Every little incident is a publicity stunt for them.”

A spokesman for the Indian high commission in Ottawa denied suggestions from the activists that its government may have somehow been behind the incident.

“The propaganda and efforts by some Pakistan-supported extremist elements to mislead the public and put out untruths about the incident indicates their desperation and appears to be an effort to create tensions and incite disharmony between various Indian communities in Canada,” said Sunil Kumar Sharma, the high commission’s press secretary.

Sikhs for Justice is organizing what it calls “Referendum 2020,” a non-binding plebiscite inside and outside India this November on whether a separate Sikh state should be carved out of India.

Aug. 15 was the country’s independence day, and local members of the group planned to hold a public registration session outside the consulate to promote the referendum, and underline that India is trying to suppress a peaceful form of advocacy, said Grewal.

The truck with the Indian flag pulled up to the group congregating in Brampton and the driver asked to see the person who had posted the video, which included information about the parking lot meet, he said.

Members of the group who talked to the individual saw the gun next to the gear shift, then called police, said Grewal.

A videotape shows the aftermath of the police action, with suspects sprawled face-down on the parking lot pavement before being led away.

A Peel Regional Police news release on the event says five  men were charged with multiple weapons offences, but mentions nothing about any political overtones to the incident. A Peel Police spokesman did not respond by deadline to questions about that aspect of the case.

Grewal said India is vehemently opposed to the referendum initiative because it is afraid the results will undermine its narrative about the Khalistani movement: that few Sikhs in India support it.

But the high commission’s Sharma called it a “bogus issue” being backed by India’s arch-rival Pakistan. Sikhs for Justice is a fringe group that does not even represent the mainstream of Sikh Canadians, he argued.

Deol questions the non-violent nature of the organization, noting it has called for a Punjab “bandh” — a sort of general strike — later this month in memory of a suicide bomber who killed Punjab’s chief minister and more than a dozen others in 1995.

India has good reason to try to squelch the Khalistani movement, he added, given that such issues have often led to communal violence through its history.

(Description of pistol corrected to semi-automatic 8:40 a.m. Aug. 27)

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