Canada must take Khalistani elements to task
The Government has done well to keep up the pressure on Canadian authorities for increased vigilance over pro-Khalistani elements within the ethnic Indian community in Canada. Hopefully, this will now result in some actionable movement on the ground, such as cooperation with India on related terror cases and also a crackdown down on extremist activity on Canadian soil. Home to one of the largest Indian Diaspora in the world, Canada has a track-record of harbouring anti-India elements. Moreover, the Khalistani movement has always received support from a section of Indian-Sikhs in Canada as it has in other Western countries, even though it has lost momentum at home. In recent years, however, there has been a notable upsurge in pro-Khalistani sentiment and activity. This is of deep concern, compounded by the fact that the authorities abroad have historically turned a blind eye towards these matters. For example, in the 1980s, after the Indian Government cracked down on the movement, many of the Khalistani terrorists found refuge in Canada. Similarly, Babbar Khalsa International, the most prominent Khalistani network that still has active cells in the UK, the US, and Germany, and whose Indian franchise continues to be a law and order nuisance in Punjab, was launched right under the nose of Canadian authorities. True, BKI is now a proscribed organisation in much of the Western world, but its nefarious activities have hardly ever caught the attention of local authorities who remain inexplicably reluctant to crack down on terrorists in their midst. This has perhaps been most evident in the lackadaisical manner in which the Canadian agencies handled the bombing of Air India 182. On June 23, 1985, Babbar Khalsa terrorists, seeking to ‘avenge' the excesses of Operation Bluestar, blew up the aircraft, Emperor Kanishka, flying from Montreal to Delhi via london. All 328 persons on board, most of them Canadians of Indian origin, were killed. The trial dragged on for two decades and only one person, Inderjit Singh Reyat, has been convicted. More recently, Canada as well as the UK have refused to entertain requests from New Delhi to hand over Khalistani criminals to stand trial in India — usually on specious grounds such as that deported individuals could face the death penalty in this country.
At the community level also, Canadian authorities have refused to crack down on support for extremists. The common refrain is that such activity can be ignored since it is largely peaceful — for example, the portrayal of Babbar Khalsa founder Talwinder Singh Parmar, who masterminded the Air India bombing, as a martyr at memorial services and on floats at Vaisakhi parades, or the display of large photographs of Khalistani leaders at prominent gurdwaras. Occasionally, Canada has also played the free speech card (think of the 2012 meeting between Prime Ministers Manmohan Singh and Stephen Harper) to defend its almost criminal oversight in such matters. As a result of all this, the dream for a separate Sikh homeland to be wrenched out of India continues to be fuelled in distant foreign shores, even though the Khalistani movement has few takers in Punjab today. This poses a grave security challenge to India as well as the host country.