New Delhi: “I have only one sorrow: that I have been called one against the religion, but the ones who have done so much wrong and destroyed people’s homes are hailed as martyrs,” fugitive terrorist Satinderjeet Singh alias Goldy Brar is heard saying to Sikh separatist Paramjit Singh Pamma over a call, a recording of which has gone viral over social media.
Pamma is then heard saying that Hardeep Singh Nijjar will indeed be a “martyr” because he was killed by the government and its orders.
Earlier in the phone call, Brar admitted to having killed Hardeep Singh Nijjar, an individual designated a terrorist like him and the chief of the terror outfit Khalistan Tiger Force (KTF).
Nijjar was killed outside a gurdwara in Canada’s British Columbia in June 2023, plunging Ottawa and New Delhi into a full-blown diplomatic spat after then Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau accused agents of the Indian government of having carried out the attack. India rebuffed the charges, and both countries had expelled high commissioners in a diplomatic escalation over Nijjar’s killing.
“Those who groomed and incited 16-17-year-olds to sell drugs… those who blackmailed young people into selling drugs and becoming informants… Nijjar groomed and strengthened these individuals so that he could use them when necessary,” Brar says in the clip. “Even a good person has to face the consequences of bad acts.”
“No one can say that Brar has ever been involved in the heroin trade. I will shave off my head if anyone can establish that I was involved in any such act.”
Brar has also attempted to draw a distinction between himself and jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi during the call with Pamma, saying he was giving all these “explanations” because he had a grievance that he had been called a villain of the community, while Nijjar had been hailed as a martyr.
“Lawrence may have got some, but I am telling you my motives. Only he can explain for himself. Five people sitting in one car for one work can have different motives. I am not a stooge of the government, or else why would my family be in jail,” Brar tells Pamma, who has been based in the United Kingdom for at least three decades.
The duo also spoke about the de facto chief of the KTF, Arshdeep Singh alias Arsh Dalla, and Brar said that the duo of Dalla and Sukhdool Singh Gill indoctrinated and blackmailed so many young people from Punjab. “I am telling you these two are bad guys,” Pamma responds to Brar in the affirmative.
Brar referred to an incident from 2021-22, when a youth from his home district, Moga, came into contact with Dalla on Snapchat. “Arsh Dalla instructed the guy that he would get a parcel with protein powder in it and asked him to hand it over to someone in Faridkot jail,” Brar tells Pamma.
“He instructed him to open the box on video call, and Dalla took screenshots of the call, and when the youth objected to the plan after seeing that a grenade was there in the package and not protein, Dalla started blackmailing him and also referred to him as a CIA in-charge in the region,” Brar says.
That youth was used for so many illegal activities over a period of a year, Brar says, before he was arrested by the police and is still lodged in jail.
“These guys can’t be the martyrs of the community,” Brar tells Pamma in reference to Pamma. “Confirm how much drugs and arms and ammunition Nijjar had been sending to Punjab and Kashmir, confirm those,” Brar asks Pamma. “My younger brother, who was involved in illegal activities… I concede… but he did not kill anyone and did not harm anyone,” Brar tells Pamma in reference to his younger brother Gurlal Brar, who was killed in 2020 in Chandigarh.
Brar further says that he went to Canada in August 2017 and did not commit any criminal act till October 2020.
“I have wiped floors for a living here despite being part of the same gang. No one can say that I was involved in any criminal act or extortion,” Brar says. “But when someone killed my brother, your blood gets boiling, and then you don’t have any understanding left, and you would like to kill those who shelter my enemies,” Brar says.
(Edited by Nardeep Singh Dahiya)