KHALISTAN EXTREMISM MONITOR
A project of the Institute for Conflict Management
A project of the Institute for Conflict Management
The pro-Khalistan radical groups in Canada took assassination floats on Saturday paying “homage” to the suicide bomber responsible for the killing of then Punjab chief minister Beant Singh in 1995.
The floats, which were taken out to the Indian consulate in Vancouver, depicted the assassination in a bombed car splattered with blood, with the slain CM’s photographs.
“Beanta Bombed to Death”, the float read, while also paying homage to his killer Dilawar Singh Babbar, the suicide bomber. The assassination took place on August 31, 1995.
A similar rally was held in Toronto and led by Inderjeet Singh Gosal, who described campaigners for the so-called “Khalistan Referendum” as “offspring” of Dilawar Singh.
Gosal, one of the principal organisers of the referendum and an associate of Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) general counsel Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, had in August received a verbal “duty to warn” from Canadian law enforcement about a threat to his life. That warning had been delivered by both the Ontario Provincial Police and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or RCMP. Gosal was also close to Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was killed in Surrey, British Columbia, on June 18 last year.
That suicide bombing in Chandigarh killed a total of 17 people. The terrorist organisation Babbar Khalsa International or BKI, had claimed responsibility for the attack. BKI is in the list of Canada’s proscribed terrorist entities.
On June 9, a parade in Brampton in the Greater Toronto Area or GTA, included a float that featured an effigy of Indira Gandhi as she was being fired upon by her bodyguards. It also featured posters stating her “punishment” had been “delivered” on October 31, 1984, the date of the assassination. The parade marked the 40th anniversary of Operation Bluestar, when the Indian Army stormed the Golden Temple complex in Amritsar to flush out Khalistani extremists, including their leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale.
This float appeared just three days after a similar display during a protest in front of India’s consulate in Vancouver. Reacting to that on Friday, Canada’s minister of public safety Dominic LeBlanc posted on X, “The promotion of violence is never acceptable in Canada.”
On June 4 last year, a similar float was part of a martyrdom day event in the GTA. Indira Gandhi’s assassination was followed by the anti-Sikh riots in Delhi and elsewhere in the country, which resulted in thousands being killed and businesses looted.