Sikhs living abroad fear surveillance by Indian agents, informants

Some in UK, US, Canada receive warnings about being potential targets of attacks

- Rohini Mohan

BENGALURU - Mr Gill (name changed) was having dinner at home with his wife in central England when the local police knocked on the door.

"The police said they had information that my life was under threat, that I should be careful and inform them if someone is following me, or move out of my house to be safe," the British-born Sikh in his 30s told The Straits Times, while requesting anonymity.

He runs a history podcast on You Tube, and works in a digital solutions company.

"Why me? Who could want me dead?" he said he asked himself, after receiving the "threat to life warning notice" from the police in May 2023, a copy of which ST has seen. It said "your personal safety is now in danger", and advised him to get burglar alarms, change daily routines, always walk with someone, install a camera at the door and maybe even leave the area for a while.

Mr Gill said he kept looking over his shoulder for weeks.

The police refused to tell him the source of the threat. Maybe it was Sikh separatist groups he had criticised, he thought.

But he was gripped with a new fear a month later when Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a naturalised Canadian, was gunned down outside a Sikh temple in Canada, and the authorities there said Indian diplomats were involved in his murder. Mr Nijj ar had also been warned of threats to his life by the Canadian police.

Mr Gill had previously spoken on his podcast about the Indian government's repression of critics.

Now he wondered: "Could Indian state agents really be involved in targeting vocal Sikhs abroad?"

This is the question many in the Sikh diaspora of around two million are asking today, as Canadian and American leaders and law enforcement agencies accuse the Indian state and top consulate officials of targeting critics and Sikh separatists abroad.