WRITTEN EVIDENCE SUBMITTED BY ANONYMOUS

(TRUK0173)

 

 

Overview

Transnational repression against British Sikhs by the Government of India represents a growing threat. Indian agents and government-aligned actors have ramped up a targeted multimedia campaign of harassment, intimidation and threats against Sikhs who are perceived to be critical of India’s human rights record or supportive of an independent Sikh state and the right to self-determination.

The issue of Indian transnational repression exploded into the international media’s attention when in 2023 PM Trudeau announced that Canada had obtained evidence linking the Indian government to the killing of a Sikh activist and community leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar. Shortly following this announcement, it was revealed that the US had foiled an assassination attempt of another Sikh activist, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun.

The details of these cases and outcomes of relevant subsequent investigations are relevant to British Sikh diaspora because both Nijjar and Pannun were named targets on a “hit list” of 20 Sikhs in the diaspora, purportedly devised by the Indian intelligence services the NIA, and issued on Indian television (Aaj Tak) on 10 July 2023. This hit list, viewable here, included at least six Sikhs from the UK, as well as Avtar Singh Khanda who had died the month before in Birmingham, within three days of Nijjar’s death.

While these cases represent the most extreme manifestation of Indian TNR, a growing evidence base demonstrates the playbook and tactics used by Indian government officials, agencies and outriders to manipulate the information environment, defame innocent Sikhs in the diaspora, and attempt to silence and chill political dissent. The all-encompassing term “transnational repression” has given many Sikhs a term with which to make sense of the wide range of tactics employed by the Indian state, and is coming into more frequent use among the community.

India’s “hit list”

Avtar Singh Khanda died in Birmingham in June 2023, within three days of the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada. Khanda fit the profile of an Indian target, as a vocal Sikh activist who supported an independent Sikh-majority state, and who had caught the attention of Indian agencies and officials.

When Narendra Modi visited the UK as PM for the first time in November 2015 and met David Cameron it was widely reported in the media that a so-called Indian ‘dossier’ was provided about Sikh activists and Sikh organisations in the UK where the Indian government had concerns.  The “dossier” specifically named Avtar Singh Khanda and this was reported by the media at that time. Trudeau has revealed more recently that Prime Minister Modi told him directly at the G20 in 2023 that “we have people who are outspoken against the Indian government living in Canada that he would like to see arrested.” It is clear that India actively monitors Sikhs in the diaspora and advocates for their arrests and extradition at the highest political levels.

In March 2023, after violence broke out at a protest outside the Indian High Commission in London, Mr Khanda had been accused in Indian media of pulling down the flag at the protest which provoked a media storm, which several leading UK politicians commented on at the time. A police investigation concluded that Mr Khanda was not responsible. Nevertheless, Indian media blamed him, portraying Khanda as a separatist terrorist and enemy of the Indian state. Some commentators on Indian television openly called for his “elimination”.

Khanda’s subsequent death, and subsequent naming in the aforementioned clip from the TV channel Aaj Tak, understandably raised concerns. Despite several irregularities with Avtar Singh Khanda’s death in Birmingham, the authorities frustrated attempts to secure an independent post-mortem and have insisted that he died of natural causes, leaving concerns about his death unresolved. Following the sharing of the “hit list” on TV, the UK-based Sikhs who were named in the broadcast subsequently reported receiving threats, with some being issued threat to life notices by West Midlands Police, and placed under police protection.

This episode is consistent with evidence that has emerged from various investigations that have followed the death of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) issued a statement in October 2024 that they had gathered credible evidence that India were involved in Nijjar’s death. The RCMP said it had evidence “tying agents of the government of India to homicides and violent acts” as well as evidence of members of the Indian diaspora in Canada being “coerced and threatened into working with the government of India,” and of an intelligence-gathering campaign run against the Canadian government. As part of its investigation, the RCMP identified “over a dozen credible and imminent threats to life.” The police arrested several people in connection with alleged plots targeting these Sikh activists, while dozens more were arrested on related extortion charges. The Canadian Foreign Interference Inquiry’s initial report, published in May 2024, had claimed that the Government of India may have also attempted to financially support preferred candidates in elections.

The allegations against the Indian government of course constitute a litany of human rights violations. A report produced by five UNHRC Special Rapporteurs on 19 November 2024 was recently made public, which focused on the alleged killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar. In the report, the Special Rapporteurs express concern about India’s “systematic attacks on Sikh activists in Canada, the United States, and other countries, including private and public harassment and intimidation, threats of violence and death, and the planning of physical attacks.” The report warns that, proven true, these allegations could constitute violations of a litany of human rights, including the right to life; the right to security of person; the right to due process and judicial protection; the requirement of legality; freedom from unlawful attacks on one’s honour and reputation; freedom of religion or belief; freedom of opinion and expression; and minority rights.

The UK Government and Ministers have generally opted to avoid commenting directly on the allegations against India, and defer to the outcomes of various investigations and inquiries in other countries instead. In September 2023, James Cleverly as Foreign Secretary remarked that “all countries should respect sovereignty and the rule of law.” It has subsequently emerged that the UK seemed to have taken some action against India during that summer, however. According to reports in The Print, the second in command of India’s foreign intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), in London was told to leave the UK around the same time the head of the RAW base in San Francisco was also expelled from the USA, in connection to the plot to kill Pannun. This suggests that the UK Government has evidence of India conducting malign operations on its soil, but has opted to deal with them quietly in order to avoid a diplomatic row.

Targeting British Sikhs: the playbook

That the Indian government may have resorted to the extrajudicial killings of activists on the soil of allied G7 countries is itself extraordinary. However, it is important to consider what could have led a nominally democratic country to this point, and its long history of targeting of Sikh dissidents in foreign countries through other means.

As the final report from the Canadian Foreign Interference Commission notes, India views Sikh diaspora communities as fostering “anti-India” sentiment, and refuses to recognise their rights to conduct lawful, political advocacy, despite being a democracy. The slide into increasingly aggressive tactics to threaten, harass and malign Sikh activists who are critical of the Indian government goes back years, and has received some media and political attention in the UK, although usually in relation to individual cases, in the absence of a more systematic investigation into Indian TNR.

The most famous case of course relates to Jagtar Singh Johal, a Scottish man who, while in India for his wedding, was abducted by plain clothes police officers in the street, allegedly tortured in detention, and has now been arbitrarily detained for over seven years. His case has been extensively documented in the public domain.

The charges brought against Jagtar Singh Johal bare scrutiny, because they have been employed against other Sikh activists in an attempt to secure their extradition from the UK. In 2021, a case against the so-called West Midlands Three collapsed after the Indian Government failed to present any evidence to the courts to support their charges while seeking their extradition. Remarkably, the then Home Secretary Priti Patel had rubberstamped the Indian government’s extradition request the month before.

The three were accused by the Indian authorities of being involved in a high-profile 2009 murder plot, despite a West Midlands Police investigation finding no evidence of this in 2011. According to the highly respected human rights lawyer Gareth Peirce, who represented the West Midlands Three, not only had the Indian authorities brought a case without credible evidence, but the prosecution had failed to tell the court that there had already been trials of other men in India in the same case who all had been acquitted. The prosecution had tried to reuse evidence that had already been judged in such cases to have been fabricated, as witnesses had been coerced. The murder plot the three were accused of being involved in was in fact the same as that which Johal had been accused of in India, with legal proceedings repeatedly delayed. Peirce’s statement following the trial was remarkable for what it revealed:

“We in the defence were astonished when we began to understand the record of how people in India can be arrested and proceeded against year after year without ever being brought to trial.”

“How it is that a British man, Mr Johal, has been detained year after year after year on evidence of the same kind, of a wafer-thin case based upon a confession that’s come from torture? Of extreme interest to us in investigating was that police officers in this case being used to support the prosecution had themselves been convicted of involvement in disappearances, torture and murder.”

The case raises several questions about the relationship between the UK Government and the Indian authorities, the integrity of India’s judicial systems, particularly in the context of the ongoing case involving Jagtar Singh Johal, and the sense of impunity enjoyed by the Indian authorities, that such a transparent and thin case could be brought to the British courts with, apparently, no repercussions.

Anti-Sikh narratives in the media

The vilification of “Khalistanis” as terrorists and extremists by Indian officials, politicians and state-aligned media, despite there being no evidence in almost all cases, is another way in which India puts Sikh lives and rights at risk. The consequences of this rhetoric for British Sikhs, felt both personally and politically, are very real – particularly in the success India has had in influencing the UK government and politicians.

It is worth beginning by setting out clearly that Sikh extremism is a minor issue in the UK. References to “Sikh activism” in the Commission for Countering Extremism’s “3 Years On” report published in March 2021 lists as evidence in its annex a report by religious extremism expert Dr Jasjit Singh, who concludes: “I found little evidence of radicalisation to terrorism among British Sikhs.” There is currently only one single proscribed Sikh group under counter-terror laws, which was added in 2001.

Despite this, UK media and political narratives about Sikh extremism have grown in traction in recent years. In 2021, the then Home Secretary Priti Patel gave a speech to the Heritage Foundation in the US in which she compared “extreme far-right terrorist groups” to “Sikh separatist extremism.” In 2023, an incident at the Indian High Commission was condemned by politicians of all stripes. Some, such as Bob Blackman, labelled the protestors “terrorists” in comments in the House of Commons. The previous government also commissioned Colin Bloom to write a review of “faith engagement,” which expounded at length about “Sikh extremism” and “PKE”, despite being unable to evidence the extent of the UK problem and drawing examples primarily from countries other than the UK.

The rise in the use of this language was striking for its similarity to Indian media reports and political rhetoric, despite the lack of evidence to show that there is a serious extremism problem within the British Sikh community. At times, the attempts to manage the UK-India diplomatic relationship by referencing this narrative was blatant. For example, in May 2023, the FCDO recruited for Security and Diaspora Officer to its India Desk, noting in the job advert that the role-holder would work on cooperation with the Indian government on “Sikh extremism” – “an area of high interest to the Indian Government” (see Annex 1). In August the same year, the Security Minister announced a £95,000 investment into understanding “Pro-Khalistan Extremism” or PKE, to complement existing cooperation between the countries on the issue – an announcement that was primarily, and widely reported in the Indian press. These examples demonstrate the UK Government’s open acknowledgement of India’s preoccupation with Sikh separatism, and how the UK government has sought to placate India’s concerns. It is notable, of course, that this occurred around the same time as the death of Hardeep Singh Nijjar. In September, barely a week prior to PM Trudeau’s announcement, British PM Rishi Sunak gave several interviews denouncing “Pro-Khalistan Extremism” in the UK while on a state visit to India.

Further evidence of UK-India cooperation on the issue of Sikh extremism has emerged more recently in 2024. Several Sikhs have contacted MPs about the unusual line of questioning they have been subjected to while detained at airports under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act. The line of questioning closely mirrors Indian government lines and narratives, with questions centring on the detainee’s views on Sikhism, on the partition of India, and on Nijjar’s death in Canada. For obvious reasons, this is a highly inappropriate line of questioning under equalities law, and raises further questions about India’s influence over the UK’s policies towards the Sikh community.

It is hard to say how much of India’s interest in Sikh separatism in the diaspora is driven by genuine security concerns. However, the widespread use of rhetoric painting high profile diaspora voices as extremists and terrorists, including by senior politicians, indicates that there is a strongly political dimension to this phenomenon. Not only have activists been painted as extremists and terrorists on social media and in the Indian press, but elected UK politicians have been too.

Some of these campaigns have amounted to direct electoral interference. In 2019, British Hindus were encouraged to not support Labour candidates during the election, as they were portrayed as anti-India. Anti-Labour messages and rhetoric were shared widely in private, encrypted whatsapp channels using the forwarding feature, as reported by Sky at the time. Labour is of course notable for being the only major Party in the UK with senior Sikh MPs.

A group of people posing for a picture Description automatically generatedThe targeting of Sikh MPs is particularly obvious on social media. A report by the Centre for Information Resilience published in November 2021 reveals how deliberately social media is manipulated to boost anti-Sikh narratives. The report’s author, Benjamin Strick, identified 80 fake accounts – often with Sikh names and profile pictures – in a sophisticated influence operation, which used social media accounts across Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to promote Hindu nationalism and pro-Indian government narratives. The aim of the network appears to have been to "alter perceptions on important issues around Sikh independence, human rights and values". Very little of the content included text in Punjabi - the biggest language for Sikhs in India - and nearly all the content was in English.

More recently, the Canadian Foreign Interference Commission has also picked up on these tactics. The report notes that India views Sikh diaspora communities as fostering “anti-India” sentiment, and refuses to recognise their rights to conduct lawful, political advocacy. Commissioner Hogue’s final report sets out a litany of findings that examine India’s activities using the media in Canada, but which could equally apply in the UK:

The final report also outlines in detail how Indian media outlets that are aligned to the BJP and the Prime Minister are used to promote pro-India, anti-Sikh narratives.

Conclusion

India clearly engages in repressive activities against Sikh political dissidents and human rights defenders in the UK, but also show an interest in interfering in UK democratic processes. India collects information and monitors individuals of interest and politicians in order to undermine support for policies related to issues such an independent Sikh state and the farmer’s protests. In recent years, it has utilised an arsenal of tactics to malign and spread disinformation about diaspora Sikhs that support Khalistan, portraying them as anti-India and extremists, using  aligned media outlets and social media in sophisticated grassroots and political influencing operations. Supportive media publications frequently publish articles designed to create the  perception that so-called PKE is rife in the UK, and also target individual politicians, campaigners or organisations for criticism for their “anti-India” or “pro-Khalistan” views. Places of worship have also been targeted for fostering extremism, with complaints submitted to the charity commission, etc.

Whether it is Sikhs in the West Midlands receiving threat to life notices, MPs receiving death threats, or ordinary citizens having their lives turned upside down, India’s TNR activities are extensive and can have serious consequences. The link between the examples outlined and the Indian government warrant further investigation, and should be taken seriously by UK policymakers.

While some of the examples detailed are very specific, the wider cultural consequences  are also worthy of further examination. Many Sikhs report that the media and social media environment for Sikhs is increasingly hostile and risks undermining community cohesion. Particularly in light of the well-publicised news of alleged assassinations of Sikhs in the US and Canada, the indiscreet and aggressive manner of India’s campaign of anti-Sikh repression also risks creating a chilling effect on free speech.

India’s apparent willingness to use illegal and even violent tactics to achieve its ends should give UK policymakers serious pause for thought. So far, UK politicians have mainly sought to pacify India’s concerns about Sikh dissidents and alleged ‘extremism’, but it is possible that such a strategy has only emboldened India in the longer term.

In the future, policymakers should be cognisant that India’s repertoire of tactics will only become more sophisticated. As India aspires to build a modernised cyber program, the national security and intelligence community assesses India to be an emerging cyber threat actor. As it stands, all evidence suggests that India’s activities in the UK have gone largely unchecked.

 

Annex 1

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(March 2025)