Was Indian Government Agencies Behind Senior Malik’s Murder Similar To Their Hand In Canadian Sikh Leader Hardeep Nijjar’s Murder?
The son of slain controversial Sikh businessman Ripudaman Malik, who was acquitted of all charges after being charged with conspiracy in the Air India bombing, has been warned by Canadian police that his life maybe in danger. The Royal Canadian Mount Police (RCMP) has told Hardeep Malik that there is a credible threat on his life. RCMP have also warned other Sikhs associated with the Khalistan separatist movement in British Columbia that they should be careful as death threats, obviously from the usual suspects of Indian government agencies, remains. The Indian government agencies, going all the way to the top to the Prime Minister and Home Minister’s office, have already been implicated in the murder of Canadian Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar’s murder last year. Indian government has also been accused by the United States of being behind the attempted assassination of Khalistan leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannu in US. CBC News reports that it has learned RCMP investigators have been probing whether the government of India was behind the killing of the wealthy and controversial businessman Malik, whose widow (wife) and several other family members were travelling in France last week when the RCMP delivered a letter to Hardeep Malik warning him that his life could be in danger from a criminal conspiracy. Aaj Magazine editors including R. Paul Dhillon, founder of DESIBUZZCanada, had done an indepth investigative story on Malik, also known as the “Rupee Man”, detailing his involvement in the plot and how he had been overlooked by the Canadian police agencies. It was shortly after the investigative piece appeared in Aaj Magazine in the mid-to-late 1990s that Malik was charged with conspiracy in the Air India bombing. Even though he was eventually acquitted but his “double-agent” label remained and Sikh separatists and Khalistanis never trusted Malik again as they suspected that he was working with Indian government agencies targeting Sikhs. DESIBUZZCanada has long made this connection that Malik’s murder was a test by RAW to use criminals and hitmen to do their dirty work but they didn’t think that the killers would be easily arrested and they would reveal much information as to who they received the contract to kill to Canadian police. And going by what Canadian police now say that Malik was most likely killed by the same Indian government agency that killed Nijjar and attempted to kill Canadian-US citizen Pannu in the US. CBC reports that Malik’s contacts with the government of India were mostly through the Indian consulate in Vancouver, where he was in touch with a diplomat called Amar Jit Singh, who once served as India’s consul-general in Herat, Afghanistan, along with stints in Iran, the UAE, Japan and the U.K. CBC reports that Amar Jit Singh, who has since returned to India and retired, led the effort to convince Khalistanis to renounce their past allegiances in return for removal from Indian blacklists. WhatsApp chat logs and call logs show that he was in close touch with Singh Malik throughout Wednesday, July 13 and the early hours of Thursday, July 14, 2022. Malik was shot dead as he arrived at his office later that Thursday morning. Police have charged two local men, Tanner Fox and Jose Lopez, with first-degree murder. Investigators say both men are known in B.C. gang circles. Their trial is set for October. Many in the Sikh community believe that RAW was hoping to start a war between Malik and Nijjar factions as the two had ongoing disputes on many issues including printing of “Sarups” (Sikh holy book) which Malik agreed to stop after much heat from wider Sikh community and Sikh supreme authority Akal Takht. RAW also thought they can justify killing Khalistanis by creating a violent atmosphere that it was a community fight but it never developed into that. However, RAW found the criminals to do their dirty work in Canada but didn’t learn their lesson. Canadian police caught Malik’s killers who obviously gave CSIS-RCMP details which led to the India conspiracy unraveling but it was amateur hour for RAW as they used Indian nationals to kill Nijjar and police caught those killers as well, which has led to international condemnation and embarrassment for India and RAW.
By Mr. X – Special To DESIBUZZCanada
With News Files From CBC News
SURREY – The son of slain controversial Sikh businessman Ripudaman Malik, who was acquitted of all charges after being charged with conspiracy in the Air India bombing, has been warned by Canadian police that his life maybe in danger.
The Royal Canadian Mount Police (RCMP) has told Hardeep Malik that there is a credible threat on his life.
RCMP have also warned other Sikhs associated with the Khalistan separatist movement in British Columbia that they should be careful as death threats, obviously from the usual suspects of Indian government agencies, remains.
The Indian government agencies, going all the way to the top to the Prime Minister and Home Minister’s office, have already been implicated in the murder of Canadian Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar’s murder last year. Indian government has also been accused by the United States of being behind the attempted assassination of Khalistan leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannu in US.
RCMP issued a warning to the younger Malik, a Surrey-based businessman, through an official letter cautioning him about potential threats to his life. This comes in the wake of Ripudaman Singh Malik’s murder in 2022, for which two individuals have been charged, CBC News reported.
CBC News report, with credible police sources, that RCMP investigators are exploring the possibility of the Indian government’s alleged involvement in Ripudaman Singh Malik’s assassination, similar to their role in the killing of Nijjar in June 2023.
The warning issued to Hardeep Malik falls under the “Duty to Warn” protocol, a measure taken by authorities in British Columbia to alert individuals when their safety is at risk. The RCMP underscored that the threat must be considered likely to materialise.
CBC news report says that these developments lend credence to the suspicion that the Indian government’s targeting of Sikh figures in Canada did not begin with Nijjar’s death, a claim repeatedly denied by India.
Nijjar’s killing triggered diplomatic tensions between Canada and India after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said evidence gathered by Canadian police forces clearly indicates India’s hand in the killing.
CBC News has learned RCMP investigators have been probing whether the government of India was behind the killing of the wealthy and controversial businessman Malik, whose widow (wife) and several other family members were travelling in France last week when the RCMP delivered a letter to Hardeep Malik warning him that his life could be in danger from a criminal conspiracy.
The reported threat against Hardeep Malik could support the theory that the Indian government’s alleged campaign of assassination in Canada did not begin with Nijjar’s killing on June 18, 2023.
CBC News has seen evidence that suggests an Indian diplomat was in close contact with Ripudaman Singh Malik by phone and text in the hours leading up to his shooting — as reported in March in the Fifth Estate documentary Contract to Kill.
Investigators have been looking into whether the contacts with the diplomat had anything to do with Malik’s death at the hands of two alleged B.C. gangsters.
CBC News has spoken with senior investigative and government sources, as well as members of the Sikh community. The investigative and government sources spoke with CBC News on the condition that they not be named due to the sensitivity of the matter. CBC News has also agreed to protect the identity of some sources in the Sikh community due to concerns for their personal security.
Malik died in a hail of gunfire in the Newton area of Surrey. Some suspected he was the target of internecine feuds between current and former Sikh separatists, or the victim of a business dispute, because he had already made peace with the government of India a few years earlier.
Indian government sources quoted in Indian media pushed that narrative. India issued Malik a visa and allowed him to return home and visit family in Punjab in 2019.
Few would see Malik as an innocent bystander in the violent dispute between Khalistani militants and the government of India.
Although he was found not guilty in a trial marked by investigative failures, many in India and Canada continued to believe that the preponderance of evidence pointed toward Malik’s involvement in the bombing of an Air India passenger jet that killed 329 people, including 268 Canadians — the worst act of mass murder in Canadian history.
Many in the Sikh community believed that Malik was a double agent who helped Indian government agencies execute the Air India bombing plot by financing local Sikh separatists. He received a large loan from the State Bank of India in the early 1980s. And India’s granting of visa to Malik so quickly with the help of a RAW agent in the Vancouver Consulate whom he was in text chat with hours before he was gunned down points to the fact that he had deep roots with the Indian government agencies targeting Sikhs in Canada, US and other parts of the world.
Aaj Magazine editors including R. Paul Dhillon, founder of DESIBUZZCanada, had done an indepth story on Malik, also known as the “Rupee Man”, detailing his involvement in the plot and how he had been overlooked by the Canadian police agencies. It was shortly after the investigative piece appeared in Aaj Magazine in the mid-to-late 1990s that Malik was charged with conspiracy in the Air India bombing. Even though he was eventually acquitted but his “double-agent” label remained and Sikh separatists and Khalistanis never trusted Malik again as they suspected that he was working with Indian government agencies targeting Sikhs.
CBC reports that some years ago, India began to offer former Sikh separatists in Canada a deal: forgiveness for past deeds in return for renunciation of their separatist goals. That renunciation typically took the form of a letter.
Jaspal Singh Atwal, who in 1986, shot visiting Punjab cabinet minister Malkiat Singh Sidhu, who survived. Atwal, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for the attempted assassination, was one of the former violent separatists who received the “renunciation” amnesty from the Indian government through the same RAW agent at the Indian consulate in Vancouver who was in text conversation with Malik hours before his murder. He is the same RAW agent who helped Malik get the “renunciation” amnesty to visit India.
For his part, Atwal in exchange for this amnesty and freedom to visit India embarrassed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during his ill-advised India visit by somehow getting access to his big official dinner event in New Delhi and posing with Trudeau’s former wife Sophie.
CBC reports that Malik’s brother Harjit shed some light on how that trip came about in a 2019 interview with local online channel Charidkala Time TV. In it, he credited Indian intelligence chief Samant Kumar Goel, who ran the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), India’s foreign intelligence agency.
“Mr. Goel, the RAW chief, showed the guts to make this happen,” said Harjit Singh Malik. “I even met him in Delhi and enjoyed myself while meeting him.”
Goel took over as head of RAW in 2019, at a time when India was rethinking its policy of blacklisting Sikh emigres. The Central Adverse List, as India’s Ministry of Home Affairs called the ban list, subsequently shrank from hundreds of names to just a handful.
However, it is well known from the murderous agencies CIA and Israel’s Mossad that characters like Goel are no-one’s friend and there are ulterior motives of using such weak figures for their own agenda.
The Washington Post recently named Goel as someone U.S. intelligence agencies focused on in their investigation of the Indian government’s alleged plot to kill Nijjar associate and U.S.-Canadian citizen Gurpatwant Singh Pannun.
“U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that the operation targeting Pannun was approved by … Samant Goel,” the paper reported. Goel did not respond to the Post’s inquiries.
CBC News said it has not seen or confirmed the U.S. intelligence. Goel has not been charged by either U.S. or Canadian authorities and is understood to have left RAW.
In 2022, Malik thanked Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi personally in a letter that infuriated some in Khalistani circles.
“I am writing you this to express my deep heartfelt gratitude for the unprecedented positive steps taken by yourself to redress long-pending Sikh demands and grievances,” he wrote, “including the elimination of blacklists that restricted visits to India of thousands of Sikhs living abroad.”
One of Singh Malik’s harshest critics was Hardeep Singh Nijjar. And RAW used that drive a wedge between Malik and Khalistani factions with fake reports that Khalistanis like Nijjar were behind Malik’s murder.
In fact, Canadian investigators now believe it’s likely that both Nijjar and Malik were targeted by the government of India, according to the sources who spoke with CBC News.
DESIBUZZCanada has long made this connection that Malik’s murder was a test by RAW to use criminals and hitmen to do their dirty work but they didn’t think that the killers would be easily arrested and they would reveal much information as to who they received the contract to kill to Canadian police. And going by what Canadian police now say that Malik was most likely killed by the same Indian government agency that killed Nijjar and attempted to kill Canadian-US citizen Pannu in the US.
Many in the Sikh community believe that RAW was hoping to start a war between Malik and Nijjar factions as the two had ongoing disputes on many issues including printing of “Sarups” (Sikh holy book) which Malik agreed to stop after much heat from wider Sikh community and Sikh supreme authority Akal Takht. RAW also thought they can justify killing Khalistanis by creating a violent atmosphere that it was a community fight but it never developed into that. However, RAW found the criminals to do their dirty work in Canada but didn’t learn their lesson. Canadian police caught Malik’s killers who obviously gave CSIS-RCMP details which led to the India conspiracy unraveling but it was amateur hour for RAW as they used Indian nationals to kill Nijjar and police caught those killers as well, which has led to international condemnation and embarrassment for India and RAW.
CBC reports that Malik’s contacts with the government of India were mostly through the Indian consulate in Vancouver, where he was in touch with a diplomat called Amar Jit Singh, who once served as India’s consul-general in Herat, Afghanistan, along with stints in Iran, the UAE, Japan and the U.K.
CBC reports that Amar Jit Singh, who has since returned to India and retired, led the effort to convince Khalistanis to renounce their past allegiances in return for removal from Indian blacklists. WhatsApp chat logs and call logs show that he was in close touch with Singh Malik throughout Wednesday, July 13 and the early hours of Thursday, July 14, 2022.
Malik was shot dead as he arrived at his office later that Thursday morning. Police have charged two local men, Tanner Fox and Jose Lopez, with first-degree murder.
Investigators say both men are known in B.C. gang circles. Their trial is set for October.
Call logs show that Singh Malik received three WhatsApp calls from an Indian cellphone under the name “Amarjeet Singh, Consulate” on the evening of July 13, the day before he was killed.
According to a source who spoke to CBC News on condition they not be named, the diplomat who helped Malik through the process of getting an Indian visa was Amar Jit Singh. A WhatsApp message to Singh Malik from “Amarjeet Singh” shows a photograph of a Canadian passport in a man’s hand, held open to show a multiple-entry visa to India in Singh Malik’s name.
Singh Malik responded to the photo with the word “thanks” and a folded hands emoji.
CBC reports that later on the evening of July 13, 2022, that same Indian number sent Malik a WhatsApp message with a B.C. phone number and a name. At 4:53 am on July 14, Malik responded with thanks, and 22 minutes later the same Indian number responded, “I have told him.”
Malik was shot to death outside his office about four and a half hours later.
His day planner contained an annotation that might offer a clue about what he was expecting on the morning he was killed.
Singh Malik had circled the hours 1000 and 1030 and written “lunch” with “Amar Jit” beside it.
Amar Jit Singh has not been accused of any crime by Canadian authorities.
CBC News said they reached the diplomat by phone in India last year, but he hung up when asked about the killing. Several more attempts to reach Amar Jit Singh more recently went unanswered.
The Indian High Commission did not respond to CBC News’ request for comment on the WhatsApp exchanges between Amar Jit Singh and Ripudaman Singh Malik, India’s official view of Malik and why he was removed from the country’s travel blacklist.
With News Files From CBC News
Mr. X is a pseudonym for a group of contributors to stories in our publications from the larger South Asian/Indo-Canadian community as well as DESIBUZZCanada Staff and others.
