Canada has readily compromised its already strained diplomatic ties with India over the slain Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar. It all started on Monday, September 18 when Canadian PM Justin Trudeau, without any relevant evidence to back his claim, accused India of the killing of Nijjar on Canadian soil. This baseless allegation, which India vehemently denied, triggered a huge diplomatic row and sent relations between the two countries plummeting.
As tensions between Canada and India rise, and Canada, despite being aware of his criminal antecedents, tries to persuade the world that Nijjar was merely a religious leader, it has surfaced that Hardeep Singh Nijjar was found to be at flight risk in the United States and was on the country’s ‘no-fly’ list since 2019.
Several social media users today took note of this after X user going by the handle @journo_vinay posted screenshots of USA’s 2019 ‘no-fly,’ which was leaked in January this year. The list had the slain Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar’s name on it.
BREAKING:
— Journo Vinay (@journo_vinay) September 23, 2023
Early this year, the US No Fly List was leaked due to a security vulnerability.
I can confirm today, that the leaked list contains the name of Hardeep Singh Nijjar
So why are the US and Canada batting for a terrorist who was on the no-fly list?https://t.co/2d8Ek3jZ1Z pic.twitter.com/nSvAg5d1cT
Nijjar, the chief of Khalistan Tiger Force (KTF) — a Sikh extremist organisation banned by India and a “designated terrorist” was killed in a targeted shooting at British Columbia in Canada’s Surrey in June 2018.
Notably, in January this year, a 2019 copy of the U.S. government’s Terrorist Screening Database and “no-fly” list became public after a foreign hacker obtained the confidential documents from an unsecured server belonging to a commercial airline.
The no-fly list is a small subset of the US government Terrorist Screening Database (also known as the terrorist watchlist) that contains the identity information of known or suspected terrorists. The database is maintained by the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center.
Digital media company The DailyDot was the first to report on the leak in January this year. According to the report, the hacker, while looking for unsecured servers online, stumbled upon “NoFly.csv” and “selectee.csv” files which had over 1.5 million entries, including names and dates of birth of people recognized by the FBI as ‘known or suspected terrorists; who are barred from boarding aircraft.
The ‘no-fly’ list was established under the George W. Bush administration, initially as a small list of individuals prohibited from flying on commercial flights due to perceived threats. Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the list was formalized and expanded to include individuals identified by the FBI as potentially posing a threat to civil aviation or national security.
This ‘no-fly’ list included the name of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a wanted Khalistani leader in India, whom Canada has been desperately siding with.
Meanwhile, regardless of Trudeau’s recent backing for the Khalistani terrorist, it has been revealed that Nijjar was also on Canada’s no-fly list in 2017-18.
Earlier in the day OpIndia reported how a dossier prepared by the Indian intelligence agencies mentioned that Hardeep Singh Nijjar was an associate of terrorists belonging to the Khalistan Commando Force (KCF). The agencies said that Nijjar was associated with Gurdeep Singh alias Deepa Heranwala. Gurdeep Singh was involved in more than 200 killings in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
According to the dossier, Nijjar fled to Canada in 1996 on a forged passport under the name “Ravi Sharma” and worked as a truck driver and plumber. It adds that Nijjar was in contact with Pakistan-based KTF chief Jagtar Singh Tara and went to Pakistan in April 2012 under the guise of a Baisakhi jatha member. Tara radicalised him, and the Pakistan spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) groomed him, with the former providing him with weapons and explosives training in 2012 and 2013. According to the dossier, Tara sent US-based Harjot Singh to Canada in 2013 to instruct Nijjar on how to use a handheld GPS device.
The dossier listed several other criminal activities of Nijjar. According to the dossier, Nijjar was declared a terrorist by the Home Ministry on July 1, 2020, and the National Investigation Agency announced a cash reward of Rs 10 lakh on July 22, 2022. Despite that, the KTF head functioned with impunity in Canada.
The Indian agencies said that even after an Interpol Red Corner Notice (RCN) was issued against Nijjar in November 2014, Canada only placed him on the “no-fly list”.
