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25-09-2023
NEW DELHI/ LONDON: India’s top investigation agency confiscated Saturday the properties of Sikh separatist and close ally of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, whose killing has sparked a diplomatic row between India and Canada. Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a lawyer believed to be based in Canada, was designated as a terrorist by Indian authorities in 2020 and is wanted on charges of terrorism and sedition.
He is also the founder of the US-based group Sikhs For Justice (SFJ), whose Canada chapter was headed by Nijjar before he was gunned down by masked assailants in June near Vancouver.
The group, which has been banned by India, has been a vocal advocate for the creation of Khalistan.
Pannun jumped into the raging row and issued a video telling Canadian Hindus to “go back to India”, claiming they had adopted a “jingoistic approach” by siding with New Delhi.
In an interview with an Indian news channel, Pannun said Nijjar had been his “close associate” for over 20 years and was like a “younger brother” to him. He also blamed India for Nijjar’s killing.
Soon after his interview was aired, the Indian government issued an advisory to news networks asking them to refrain from giving a platform to people accused of “heinous crimes”.
Armed with court orders, officials of India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Saturday confiscated Pannun’s house in Chandigarh, the capital of the Sikh-majority state of Punjab, it said in a statement.
The NIA also confiscated agricultural land belonging to him in Amritsar, it added.
It accused Pannun of “actively exhorting Punjab-based gangsters and youth” on social media “to fight for the cause of independent state of Khalistan, challenging the sovereignty, integrity and security of the country”.
Meanwhile, the leader of pro-Khalistan Sikhs For Justice (SFJ) Gurpatwant Singh Pannun has claimed that India cannot silence and blackmail him by occupying his assets in Indian Punjab and by registering false cases against him.
Gurpatwant Singh Pannun spoke after India’s federal anti-terror agency on Saturday said it has confiscated the properties of Pannun whom it accuses of terror activities in India – following Canadian PM Justin Trudeau’s public and shocking accusation that India was behind the assassination of pro-Khalistan Canadian leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar who was a friend and ally of Pannun. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
