New Delhi: Over a year after announcing a Rs 11 crore reward for stopping Prime Minister Narendra Modi from hoisting the Tricolour on Independence Day, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, India-designated terrorist and head of separatist outfit Sikhs for Justice, has issued yet another threat—this time against Indian High Commissioner to Canada, Dinesh Kumar Patnaik over his comments on “terrorist elements” complicating the diplomatic relationship between New Delhi and Ottawa.
In a video on his X account, Pannun announced a reward of 25,000 USD for a “citizen’s arrest” of Patnaik, daring the Indian envoy to a face-off in a public forum on the issue of “Khalistan”.
Pannun also slammed the Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, accusing him of covering up evidence that would have allegedly implicated the Indian government in the murder of his fellow Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar, for the sake of a trade deal with New Delhi.
“The only evidence that the Canadian government has so far of any crimes committed in Canada is that of Indian Minister Amit Shah and NSA Ajit Doval, who have assassinated the shaheed Hardeep Singh Nijjar and the Carney government has the evidence. They have the evidence, but they are covering this evidence now to go for the trade deals with Modi’s India,” Pannun alleged in the video clip on X, withheld in India.
“Dinesh Patnaik is like a spineless lackey who can only make statements against pro-Khalistan Sikhs in front of Canadian government cameras from a secured location,” he said. “I challenge Patnaik to show some courage and face off against pro-Khalistan Sikhs in a public forum.”
Pannun’s video comes days after Patnaik made it clear that the Government of India had no objection to the peaceful demand and advocacy for a separate “homeland” for Sikhs developing on Canadian soil and that the only objection is about the presence of “terrorist elements” who glorify violence against the Indian State.
“If peaceful advocacy for Khalistan is permitted, why are Sikh activists being arrested in India for writing Khalistan slogans?” Pannun remarked.
Earlier, last year, Pannun had announced a Rs 11 crore reward for stopping the PM from hoisting the Indian National Flag on Independence Day, attracting a fresh FIR from the National Investigation Agency.
Pannun has a total of seven cases against him by the NIA and nearly 100 cases by police across several states for offences ranging from threats to blow up the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad during the ODI World Cup, to a voice note received at Defence Minister Rajnath Singh’s residence warning about bids to bomb Parliament and Red Fort.
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What Patnaik said
In a long interview with Canadian broadcaster CPAC last week, Patnaik discussed various issues, ranging from the organised crime syndicate of Lawrence Bishnoi, and the presence of “terrorist elements” in Canada “glorifying violence” against the Indian State, and brandishing images of the assassinations of former prime minister Indira Gandhi and Punjab ex-chief minister Beant Singh.
“…I’ve been telling from day one that Canadians, Indians, all of them have the right to peacefully advocate for whatever they believe in. Whether they believe in Khalistan, they believe in a separate homeland. Politically, we have absolutely zero problem. In fact, we have been, like I told you… for the last 40 years, political parties in India have been advocating for that. So, it’s nothing new that Canadians are doing, and we have always supported,” Patnaik said.
“You haven’t found us cracking down on peaceful political protest. What we say is don’t bring the negativity, the filth, the terrorist element, the gun running, the drug smuggling, the organised crime, extortion. Don’t bring that into the picture.”
He cited the abduction and killing of former Canadian minister Pierre Laporte in 1970 to question extremist elements’ references to Indira Gandhi and Beant Singh’s assassinations.
“Don’t have Khalistanis protesting with pictures of the killing of my prime minister. I mean, I’ll give you an example. During the height of the Quebec movement, you had a minister called Laporte who was killed. Do you remember? Imagine somebody in India taking out posters of a dead Laporte (Pierre) and glorifying it and telling this is what should happen to people in Canada. How would it be seen in Canada? How do you see it? You’d see it as…yo, what are these Indians doing? Why are they glorifying the killing of one of our ministers? Same here,” Patnaik remarked.
“When you have Khalistanis taking a picture of my prime minister being killed, of the chief minister of Punjab being blown up by a suicide bomber, and then you glorify it, and you say this is what is going to happen to Prime Minister Modi. This is what happened to the High Commissioner of India. Imagine the kind of perception back home in India.”
On the issue of diplomatic confrontation between New Delhi and Ottawa over former Canadian PM Justin Trudeau’s allegations that “agents” of the Indian government were behind the killing of Nijjar, Patnaik said that the relations had fallen to the issue of different perceptions, but that in reality, the situation was different.
“Back home in India, there was a big perception that Canada supports people who want to break up the country. In Canada, there was a perception that India does action in Canada, which it should not be doing. This perception went into such a big depth that people started believing in it. The last one year… I’ve been one year on the job now, it’s just one year exactly this month… and things have changed around a lot. Perceptions have changed, and it basically goes down to the fact that we’ve started talking to each other on all fronts. When you talk to each other, you realise perceptions are not reality and that what is built up is not actually what is true on the ground,” Patnaik said.
He said that the series of crackdowns on the organised crime syndicate in Canada in the recent past and the Bishnoi gang’s designation as “terror elements” were examples of the increased coordination and cooperation between the two countries, especially since PM Carney assumed office.
(Edited by Mannat Chugh)
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