Canadian report flags ISI using pro-Khalistan elements for terror acts in India
News Desk
A case relating to two Canadian Sikhs being placed on a no-fly list in the country has now been linked to an alleged Pakistan-based plot to use pro-Khalistan elements to conduct terrorist acts in India, according to a new report on 10th July.
The details emerged as two men, Bhagat Singh Brar and his business partner Parvkar Singh Dulai challenged being blocked from travelling by air. According to the report from Stewart Bell in the Canadian outlet Global News, Brar was “promoting extremism, including the radicalization of youth, with the aim of achieving Khalistan independence; and attack planning and facilitation, including weapons procurement, to conduct attacks in India,” as per supporting case documents filed by Canadian security agencies, including Public Safety Canada, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the country’s spy agency.
Dulai was described as a “facilitator of terrorist-related activities and has shown an ongoing pattern of involvement within the Khalistani extremist milieu”. The report said that Brar visited Pakistan in 2015 and collaborated with one Gurjeet Singh Cheema to plan an attack in India. These documents alleged that Brar collected donations for gurdwaras and “is suspected to have been diverting major part of the funds for anti-India activities”. He was also linked to Pakistan’s intelligence service, ISI. Dulai has been described as a very vocal supporter of Khalistan.
Brar again visited Pakistan in 2018 to meet his father who happens to be Lakhbir Singh Rode, nephew of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and founder of the banned International Sikh Youth Federation. To be clear, none of these allegations have been proven in any court nor have either Brar or Dulai been charged with terrorism. Both have also denied the allegations contained in the Canadian security documents in filings made by their lawyers in this case.
Shuvaloy Majumdar, a senior fellow with the Ottawa-based Macdonald-Laurier Institute, said that Bell’s explosive article exposed the “depth” of how Pakistan’s intelligence operations position themselves as community brokers. “This is a national security story impacting not one but two democracies, and has to be taken seriously as any other state sponsorship of terrorism.”
Officials at India’s high commission in Ottawa refused to comment on these revelations. However, Indian officials said New Delhi believes this instance buttresses their belief that Pakistan is intricately involved in pro-Khalistan activities in Canada, including attempted terror attacks in India.
Bhagat Singh Brar and Parvkar Singh Dulai are in the no-fly list Canada for facilitating terror; the former is the son of Lakhbir Singh Rode, nephew of slain militant preacher Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale.
It is to be mentioned that the Khalistan movement is a Sikh separatist movement seeking to create a homeland for Sikhs by establishing a sovereign state, called Khalistān (‘Land of the Khalsa’), in the Punjab region. The proposed state would consist of land that currently forms Punjab, India and Punjab, Pakistan,[i] as well as other areas of both countries, including Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and Sindh in Pakistan; and Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and parts of Jammu and Kashmir, and Rajasthan in India.[ii] Prime Minister of Pakistan Zulfikar Ali Bhutto of Pakistan, according to Jagjit Singh Chohan, had proposed to make Nankana Sahib (currently in Pakistan) the capital of Khalistan during his talks with Chohan following the conclusion of the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971.