Once the record appears unknowable, the accused become victims and the mastermind a martyr.

On June 23, federal flags were lowered, wreaths were laid and Canada again promised never to forget Air India Flight 182.

Then Canada returned to forgetting.

Forty-one years ago, a bomb destroyed Air India Flight 182, Kanishka, over the Atlantic, killing all 329 aboard, including 82 children. Fifty-five minutes earlier, another bomb from the same plot exploded at Tokyo’s Narita Airport, killing two baggage handlers.

It is Canada’s deadliest terrorist attack. A June 2025 Angus Reid Institute survey found that only 17 per cent of Canadians could identify it, 32 per cent had never heard of it and 51 per cent believed it had never truly been treated as a Canadian tragedy.

That ignorance matters. Canada’s failure began with ignored warnings, deepened when evidence and witnesses were lost, and hardened when uncertainty allowed the plot’s leaders to be remade as martyrs.

Babbar Khalsa had operated in Canada since the early 1980s. Its leader, Talwinder Singh Parmar, was wanted in India and known to Canadian agencies. On June 4, 1985, CSIS officers surveilling him followed Parmar and Inderjit Singh Reyat into woods near Duncan, British Columbia, heard an explosion, recorded it as a possible gunshot and ended surveillance.

It was one of many warnings that were ignored. Informants reported plans involving two bombs and two aircraft. Air India warned about time-delay devices hidden in checked baggage. Authorities had classified warnings that weekend’s flight.

Still, a man using the name ‘M. Singh’ checked a bag in Vancouver and did not board.

His bag did.

The bombing was preventable. Authorities were monitoring suspects, heard the bomb test and knew extra precautions were needed. Had the intelligence been connected, the suspects properly investigated or unaccompanied baggage stopped, Kanishka could have been prevented.

Instead, 329 people were blown out of the sky.

The plot reflected a Khalistani network. Parmar led Babbar Khalsa. Ajaib Singh Bagri was associated with it. Reyat, the bomb-maker, was linked to the International Sikh Youth Federation (ISYF). The Crown alleged that Ripudaman Singh Malik helped finance the plot, although he and Bagri were acquitted.

Members of both organizations were implicated. Yet Canada waited nearly eighteen years, until 2003, to list Babbar Khalsa International and the ISYF as terrorist entities. Meanwhile, their networks kept operating and building influence in Canada.

After 329 people were murdered in a plot organized largely on Canadian soil, it took a foreign tragedy (9/11), for Canada to create machinery to list and isolate terrorist organizations.

Why did Kanishka not create the urgency to disrupt financing, restrict organizational reach and deny legitimacy to those networks?

Failure continued afterward. Japan preserved evidence from Narita, traced about 1,500 bomb components to Reyat’s bombs and helped secure his 1991 manslaughter conviction for killing two baggage handlers.

In Canada, CSIS estimated that about 210 surveillance tapes were recorded during the critical period; only 54 survived. Most were erased and replaced by summaries. Intelligence was not properly shared between CSIS and the RCMP. Witnesses faced threats, violence and death.

On January 26, 1986, an explosive device was found outside Tara Singh Hayer’s newspaper office. In 1988, he survived an assassination attempt that left him disabled. He continued exposing Khalistani violence and was a key witness but he was murdered in 1998, before the trial.

Reyat later pleaded guilty to manslaughter for helping construct the Flight 182 bomb and was convicted of perjury. Even after admitting his role, he named no one. His silence protected the plot and denied families the full truth.

Malik and Bagri were acquitted because the Crown could not prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. The judge found serious credibility problems in prosecution testimony and witnesses. That conclusion must be respected but not separated from the fear surrounding witnesses.

The acquittals did not erase the conspiracy or findings on Parmar. The trial judge identified him as the mastermind; the Air India inquiry agreed. No one was convicted of murder for the 329 deaths; Reyat pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

Compromised justice created uncertainty. Uncertainty created mythology.

Kanishka was recasted as an Indian tragedy even though the plot was organized in Canada by Canadians, the bomb entered the aviation system here, most victims were Canadian and the principal failures were Canadian. Parmar’s responsibility was blurred; supporters presented his death before trial as exoneration.

Once the record appears unknowable, the accused become victims and the mastermind a martyr.

Parmar’s image continues to appear at Khalistan-related events in Canada, often labelled ‘Shaheed’. Bhindranwale, Hardeep Singh Nijjar and other figures associated with violence are similarly presented as heroes. Recent events in Brampton and Calgary displayed Khalistan flags alongside their portraits; some included graphic assassination imagery and depictions of children holding explosive devices. Khalistan activists were also present at this year’s Air India Flight 182 memorial at Queen’s Park.

This mythology sustains the Khalistani extremist movement.

If Parmar is accepted as leader of the Air India conspiracy, the movement must confront the murder of 329 innocent people, including 82 children. Recast him as a victim, martyr or man denied justice, and the burden shifts: the movement no longer answers for terrorism; it claims persecution.

Victimhood becomes political armour: violent actors become oppressed dissidents, criminal investigations become state repression, and grievance fuels organizing, fundraising and recruitment.

This mythology keeps the movement alive. By disputing the historical record and portraying identified perpetrators as victims, the movement avoids answering for the violence committed in its name. Without that victim narrative, it would have to confront the murder of 329 innocent people.

Journalist Terry Glavin reported on Khalistani militancy and the intimidation of Sikh opponents, way before the 1985 bombings. Former British Columbia premier Ujjal Dosanjh was severely beaten after denouncing Khalistani violence. Journalist Balraj Deol survived a violent attack. Hayer was shot, paralyzed and murdered.

Many Sikhs rejected Khalistani violence and paid heavily for opposing self-appointed spokesmen. This is not an indictment of Sikhs or Sikhism, but of a small, organized Khalistani extremist network that used fear to exaggerate its legitimacy.

That network gained political access. Politicians attend events where Parmar and other violent figures are displayed. Attendance alone does not prove endorsement of every banner. But leaders cannot seek the stage, applause and votes while refusing to confront the glorification around them.

Supporters may insist they target only the Indian state. But when suicide bombers and political assassins are celebrated and violent imagery normalized, authorities cannot assume only Hindus, Indo-Canadians, moderate Sikhs or known critics are at risk.

The CSIS Public Report 2025 says Canada-based Khalistani extremists continue to threaten Canada and Canadian interests, with some using Canadian institutions to advance extremist agendas and raise funds that may later support violence.

Canada improved airport security and intelligence sharing, but never learned to delegitimize, disrupt or politically isolate the Khalistani extremist network behind the attack.

Such networks weaken when financing is disrupted, intimidation prosecuted, deterrence is set, violent icons denied legitimacy and history taught honestly.

Kanishka did not end in 1985. Canada could have prevented the bombing, then failed to preserve crucial evidence, protect witnesses and secure full justice. Those failures allowed plot leaders to become martyrs, critics to be silenced and Khalistani violence to gain political legitimacy.

Today, CSIS warns Canada again.

Canada secured the aircraft.

It never confronted the Khalistani extremist network.

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not reflect Milli Chronicle’s point-of-view.

Canadians were entitled to question India’s evidence and procedures. They were not entitled to pretend that no substantial record existed.

Canada has a remarkable ability to turn a complicated record into a clean symbol.

In June 2024, the House of Commons observed a moment of silence ‘in memory of Hardeep Singh Nijjar’, one year after he was shot dead outside the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in Surrey.

His killing on Canadian soil demanded investigation, accountability and justice. But remembrance should not require amnesia. If Parliament chose to honour Nijjar, Canadians were entitled to know the full record, not only the version constructed after his death.

Being Canadian is more than possessing a passport. Citizenship establishes legal status; it does not erase conduct or automatically certify civic virtue.

Nijjar’s Canadian story began in February 1997 when, according to Global News, he arrived at Pearson Airport using a fraudulent passport under the name ‘Ravi Sharma’. His refugee claim was rejected after adjudicators questioned parts of his account and documentation.

Eleven days later, he married a British Columbia woman who sponsored him. Immigration authorities rejected the application as a marriage of convenience. He appealed and lost in 2001. Nijjar eventually became a Canadian citizen on May 25, 2007, a date later confirmed publicly by then-immigration minister Marc Miller.

His citizenship was valid. The path preceding it remained relevant when politicians later presented him as an uncomplicated Canadian community leader.

So did his public conduct.

On Facebook, Nijjar posted an image of a revolver described as the ‘choice of a militant Sikh’. The accompanying text referred to keeping the ‘monkey-army’, a slur aimed at Hindus and ‘enemies of religion’ under control.

Video footage also shows Nijjar and supporters blocking access to Indian diplomatic premises in Canada.

In a recorded Sikh Temple speech, he praised the assassinations of Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi and former army chief General A.S. Vaidya as acts of militant martyrdom.

Celebrating political assassinations from a religious platform is not peaceful civic leadership. Displaying a firearm alongside dehumanizing language about another community is not pluralism.

When questions arose about Nijjar’s immigration history, Moninder Singh Baul of the BC Gurdwaras Council argued in a circulated video that Canadians had no standing to scrutinize his fraudulent passport or rejected refugee claim because ‘white Canadians came raping and pillaging’.

That did not answer the record. It attempted to place it beyond discussion.

Nijjar’s admirers also situated him within a militant lineage. A May 2024 profile published by the tribute site 1984tribute described him as ‘privileged’ to have developed close relations with Gurdeep Singh Deepa and others connected to the Khalistan Commando Force. It also stated that Jagtar Singh Tara later appointed him leader of the Khalistan Tiger Force.

These were not accusations written by Nijjar’s opponents. They were claims presented approvingly by supporters.

Tara was convicted for his role in the 1995 assassination of Punjab chief minister Beant Singh, the equivalent of a provincial premier in Canada. Describing proximity to such figures as a privilege is difficult to reconcile with the peaceful community-leader portrait later promoted here.

India designated Nijjar an individual terrorist under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act in July 2020. In July 2022, India’s National Investigation Agency announced a reward for information leading to his arrest in a case alleging conspiracy connected to the attempted killing of a Hindu priest in Punjab.

These were Indian allegations and legal designations, not Canadian convictions. Canadians were entitled to question India’s evidence and procedures. They were not entitled to pretend that no substantial record existed.

That record was publicly available. Canadian and international media reported Nijjar’s immigration history, India’s terrorism designation, alleged militant associations, reported no-fly restrictions and criminal allegations. Those reports did not independently prove India’s case. They treated the background as relevant context.

Canadian politicians had access to the same record.

At least 21 MPs from the Liberals, Conservatives, NDP and Bloc Québécois sponsored or seconded Motion M-112, which cited Nijjar’s killing while addressing foreign interference, violence and intimidation.

Defending Canadian sovereignty and demanding accountability for a killing on Canadian soil were entirely proper. Neither required Parliament to empty Nijjar’s life of complexity.

When Justin Trudeau rose in the House of Commons in September 2023, he said Canadian agencies were pursuing ‘credible allegations of a potential link’ between agents of the Indian government and Nijjar’s killing. The language was qualified, but the consequences were immediate. Canada publicly accused another democracy before the underlying evidence had been disclosed or tested in court, damaging a relationship involving trade, security, immigration and millions of people connected to both countries.

Four men were later charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy. Reports linked some of the accused to the Bishnoi criminal network. That connection was folded into Canada’s claim that organized crime may have been used as a proxy for foreign interference.

But another possibility has never received equal public scrutiny.

Sources familiar with the circumstances of the case have privately raised the possibility that Nijjar’s death arose from gang-related violence and criminal rivalries rather than a foreign-government operation. That account has not been established in court and cannot yet be treated as proven. But neither has the claim that the Indian government ordered his murder.

The public has not seen the evidence underlying Trudeau’s accusation. No Canadian court has determined the motive for Nijjar’s killing, and no judicial finding has established that India directed it.

That unresolved gap matters. An allegation presented by a prime minister carries enormous political and diplomatic weight, even when the evidence remains secret. Once repeated often enough, a theory can harden into accepted fact before a court has examined it.

Canada maybe eventually proves foreign-state involvement. However, it may also emerge that criminal motives, personal disputes or gang rivalries were at play. Until the evidence is tested, responsible journalism and political leadership require both possibilities to remain open.

Instead, Canada settled quickly on a simplified narrative: Nijjar as a peaceful community leader killed through foreign interference, while his immigration history, militant rhetoric, criminal-network questions and alleged associations remained outside the national conversation.

That narrative reassured a politically organized pro-Khalistan constituency but left Canadians with an incomplete account of both the victim and the investigation. It also exposed Canada to the charge that domestic political considerations shaped the story before the evidence had been tested.

None of this excuses Nijjar’s killing. His death demanded a lawful investigation, and anyone responsible should be prosecuted regardless of his politics, beliefs or history.

But justice after death does not require a politically convenient biography. Nor should undisclosed intelligence be converted into a settled national narrative while credible alternative explanations remain unresolved.

Canada was right to investigate the killing.

It was not required to sanitize the person it chose to honour or ask Canadians to treat one unproven theory as a verdict.

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not reflect Milli Chronicle’s point-of-view.

Foreign interference is unacceptable in Canada. It shouldn’t become acceptable simply because it’s aimed at India.

I don’t pretend to have deep, on-the-ground knowledge of Alberta’s separatist debate. But Canada’s near-universal pushback against foreign interference in that conversation has been heartening, because it reveals a civic reflex Canadians still share, whatever your view on separation, you don’t want outsiders manipulating a domestic question.

Recent reporting has made the concern concrete. A study summarized by Global News warned that foreign actors, including American and Russian ones, are meddling in Alberta’s separatist debate in ways that threaten Canadian sovereignty (Global News, May 2026). Canada’s National Observer reported research showing inauthentic ‘news’ channels and influence campaigns amplifying Alberta secession and annexation narratives (Canada’s National Observer, April 2026). The Guardian reported a major Alberta voter-data breach linked to separatist organizing, exactly the kind of vulnerability experts warn can be exploited (The Guardian, May 2026).

So, Canada’s standard is clear: foreign interference is unacceptable, especially when it rides on disinformation, data exposure, and community targeting. Good. Now apply that same standard to how many Indians, across political views, have experienced the Khalistan file for years.

From India’s perspective, the core complaint is at least a few decades old that Canadian political space, and institutions have enabled an overseas separatist ecosystem to operate openly from Canada, often wrapped in ‘rights’ language, even as India links that ecosystem to extremism, intimidation, and criminality. That is not a characterization I’m inventing; it is an official position India has put on record. In September 2023, India’s Ministry of External Affairs explicitly referred to ‘Khalistani terrorists and extremists’ sheltered in Canada and said, ‘the space given in Canada to a range of illegal activities including murders, human trafficking and organised crime is not new’.

Canadians can disagree with India’s framing. But the asymmetry in Canadian instincts is hard to miss. When Alberta becomes the target, Canadians immediately reach for the language of sovereignty, manipulation, coercion, and democratic integrity. When India raises similar concerns about separatist organizing from Canadian soil, often paired with intimidation politics and crime allegations, Canada’s reflex is too often to repackage it as ‘a disagreement about free speech’.

Canada’s own intelligence reporting has, in fact, moved closer to India’s concern than Canada’s political class admits. The CSIS Public Report states that ongoing involvement in violent extremist activities by Canada-based Khalistani extremists continues to pose a national-security threat to Canada and Canadian interests, and notes that some fundraising can be diverted toward violent activity (CSIS Public Report, 2025). That is not India lobbying Canada. That is Canada describing a domestic threat.

The double standard isn’t only about what is tolerated on Canadian soil. It’s also about what Canadian politicians choose to amplify abroad and that record spans parties.

During the 2020–21 farmers’ protest, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau publicly called the situation ‘concerning’ and signalled support for peaceful protest and dialogue (Hindustan Times, December 2020). Conservative MPs spoke too. In the House of Commons, Arnold Viersen said Sikhs were ‘thinking of and praying for India’s farmers’ protesting new legislation (House of Commons Hansard, November 2020).

Conservative MP Brad Vis tabled petitions from constituents ‘concerned for the safety of farmers’ protesting domestic legislative changes in India (House of Commons Hansard, December 2020). Conservative MP Tim Uppal likewise said India’s farmers ‘deserve to be heard and respected’, a message amplified in media coverage (Scroll, December 2020). Ontario NDP MPP Gurratan Singh was also cited among Canadian politicians voicing concern about the protests, showing the commentary extended beyond Ottawa into provincial politics (Canada’s National Observer, December 2020).

The Amritpal Singh episode in 2023 is even more instructive because it involved public order and violence, not merely protest. Al Jazeera reported that Amritpal and supporters armed with swords, knives and guns raided a police station in February 2023 after an aide was arrested, an event central to the later crackdown and manhunt (Al Jazeera, April 2023). India Today reported Punjab Police describing the Ajnala, Punjab incident as an attack on police and highlighting pressure on authorities during the confrontation. (India Today, February 2023).

Now ask a simple question: if a mobilized group stormed a police station in Canada to force the release of an aide, under threat, with weapons visible, would Canadian authorities treat it as ‘civil liberties’ theatre, or would they enforce criminal law and restore public order?

Canadian political reactions again moved quickly into public positioning. Global News reported that MPs from multiple parties criticized India’s crackdown and internet restrictions, and it specifically noted Conservative voices as well. Conservative deputy leader Tim Uppal and Conservative MP Jasraj Singh Hallan among them (Global News, March 2023). Canada’s Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly said Canada was following developments ‘very closely’ (The Indian Express, March 2023). Jagmeet Singh called the crackdown ‘draconian’ and urged Canadian intervention (Hindustan Times, March 2023).

Outside government, the World Sikh Organization of Canada issued a formal statement condemning the “security operations” in Punjab and raising fears about extrajudicial harm, illustrating how non-government actors in Canada also shaped the narrative internationally (World Sikh Organization of Canada, March 2023)

India’s response to both episodes followed the same script: formal diplomatic pushback and a clear message that Canada was commenting on internal Indian matters. In 2020, India summoned Canada’s envoy, warned that Trudeau’s remarks could ‘impact ties’, and called the commentary ‘ill-informed’, ‘unwarranted’, and ‘interference’ (Al Jazeera, December 2020) (India Today, December 2020) (Reuters, December 2020).

In 2023, as Canadian politicians and organizations criticized the Punjab crackdown, Indian officials framed the operation as law-enforcement action to ‘nab a fugitive’, signalling that Canada’s commentary was external noise while India pursued policing. (The Indian Express, March 2023.)

Put the pattern together and the hypocrisy becomes harder to ignore. Canada is right to reject foreign interference in Alberta. But Canada’s political class has repeatedly engaged in rhetorical interference in India, on mass protests and on an internal security crackdown triggered by a police-station attack, then bristled when India said, plainly, ‘this is our internal matter’.

That is why the Alberta interference debate matters beyond Alberta. It has forced Canadians to admit, in real time, that democratic debates can be manipulated through proxies, disinformation, intimidation, and exploitation of institutional openness. Canada is suddenly fluent in the language of foreign influence because it can taste it.

The underlying principle is that sovereignty is not selective. If foreign interference is wrong when aimed at Canadian unity, it is equally wrong when Canadian space is used to inflame separatist politics abroad.

Foreign interference is unacceptable in Canada. It shouldn’t become acceptable simply because it’s aimed at India.

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not reflect Milli Chronicle’s point-of-view.

Nancy Grewal’s family is demanding justice. Justice now means more than solving a murder.

Western democracies like to sermonize about rights, pluralism, and the protection of dissent. Their real test is simpler: what do they do when an ordinary immigrant woman says she is afraid and asks for help?

Nancy Grewal asked for help.

She was a 45-year-old Sikh woman who moved to Canada in 2018, settled in Windsor, Ontario, and worked as a personal support worker. Her union later described her as a steward and a committed worker. She was not a celebrity activist insulated by institutions. She was a frontline worker, often alone, who also became known online for criticizing the violent Khalistan movement and the people she believed used intimidation, influence, and religious spaces to dominate parts of her community.

On the night of 3 March 2026, after finishing work at a client’s home on Todd Lane in LaSalle, she was stabbed multiple times and later succumbed to her injuries. Police were unusually clear from the beginning: this was “not a random act of violence” but “an intentional act against her.” The Ontario Provincial Police later joined the probe. Nancy Grewal was not caught in random chaos—she was targeted.

What makes the case darker is that she appears to have predicted it.

CityNews reported on 5 March that Nancy’s sister, Alisha, said she had been receiving threats, believed she was being followed, and had already gone to police with the names of the people she feared. Alisha called the murder “pre-planned” and “revenge” for Nancy’s videos. Later, speaking to AM800, she asked the question that now sits at the centre of the case: if her sister was “giving names, giving everything,” why was she not taken seriously?

Nancy’s own words make that question impossible to ignore. In a video recorded after someone tried to burn her house in November 2025, she said: “I’m a Canadian citizen, but I don’t feel safe in this country right now.” She also pointed toward Gurdwara Khalsa Parkash in Maidstone, alleging that the intimidation came from men linked to that gurdwara. This matters because it places the story not simply in the realm of a private feud, but in a charged religious ecosystem where community power, diaspora radicalism, and fear can overlap.

After her murder, investigators released surveillance footage of what they described as a targeted arson at her home. A van stops. A man gets out with a gas can, pours liquid on the porch, sets it alight, and flees. This was no imagined danger—it was a documented attack on her home months before she was killed.

Nancy did not describe that arson as an isolated act. She linked it to an earlier shooting near St. Rose Avenue and Wyandotte Street East in Windsor. In her account, these were connected expressions of the same pattern. She said the “real man” behind the attacks does not come forward himself but “hires repeat offenders and criminals to do the job.”

That line is one reason public attention later turned to the names her family raised.

After Nancy was killed, her mother said she had feared Avtar Singh Kooner. She also named Barinder Shokar and Harpinder. According to the family, Harpinder befriended Nancy on Instagram, followed and surveilled her, came to her house, and checked for cameras around the home and car. Her mother’s point was blunt: Nancy’s location as a healthcare worker was not widely known, and it was highly unlikely that her employer had leaked it. If that account is true, this was not accidental exposure—it was deliberate access.

The Kooner name carries its own shadow. Air India inquiry records show that RCMP investigators searched Avtar Singh Kooner’s residence in June 1985. Reporting on Gurfathe “Laddi” Singh Kooner, Avtar’s son, described an earlier case in which he was seen tossing a bag from an F-150 pickup; the recovered bag contained guns and ammunition. The backdrop is darker still: Avtar Kooner appears in a social media photograph with Lakhbir Singh Rode, nephew of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. Rode has been publicly identified as a leading figure in the International Sikh Youth Federation, which Canada lists as a terrorist entity. None of this proves who killed Nancy Grewal, but it places the names raised by her family within a historical and political context far more serious than Canada likes to admit.

Then the institutional questions become impossible to ignore.

On 15 March, the OPP released the arson video and said they were trying to determine whether it was linked to Nancy’s murder. On 20 March, Alisha publicly asked why that footage had not been released sooner. By 23 March, AM800 reported that the OPP and LaSalle Police had taken over the arson file from Windsor Police because investigators believed there could be a connection. If a woman reports threats, if her home is later confirmed to have been targeted in an arson attack, and if that arson may be linked to her murder, then the issue is no longer simply whether she was afraid. The issue is whether the system acted with anything like the urgency her case demanded.

There is another deeply uncomfortable detail. Nancy had spoken to CBC in February about the threats she was facing. Canadaland later described that interview as one in which she said she feared for her life just days before she was stabbed to death. The interview, by later accounts, aired only after she was killed. CBC is entitled to its editorial judgment, but the moral question remains: when a woman says on record that she is under threat, what obligation does a public broadcaster owe—not just to journalism, but to urgency?

This should shame more than one institution. Police had warnings. Media had testimony. Her family says officers were given names and even a letter. Yet Nancy remained exposed until the danger she described became irreversible.

Canada has a habit of flattening such cases into the language of “community tensions,” as though threats, stalking, arson, and murder are merely difficult internal disagreements best managed quietly. That language is not neutral. It shields institutions from embarrassment while leaving vulnerable people to absorb the risk.

Nancy Grewal’s family is demanding justice. Justice now means more than solving a murder. It means answering the harder question Canada would rather avoid: When Nancy Grewal said she was in danger, why did Canada not act as if she was?

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not reflect Milli Chronicle’s point-of-view.

In Khalistan-adjacent cases, the route is often packaged as ‘human rights’, but the toolkit is familiar: coaching, paperwork, and performance.

In July 2023, The Times of India reported on a ‘sting’ based on a Daily Mail (UK) investigation in which an undercover reporter was allegedly coached by rogue UK lawyers to claim he was a Khalistani supporter to seek asylum. In the same month, The Economic Times reported the UK legal watchdog opened an investigation and noted then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak condemned the conduct. The point isn’t the UK’s internal politics. It’s the mechanism, when an asylum channel becomes a repeatable script, coached identity, packaged ‘proof’, intermediaries paid to shape the story, it stops being protection and starts being a loophole.

Canada should recognize the same mechanics at home. Canada has grappled with politicized claim-making tied to India since the late 1970s and early 1980s, intensifying in the mid-1980s. What has changed is scale, and how easily a modern ecosystem can industrialize claims through brokers, staged political identities, and document markets. In Khalistan-adjacent cases, the route is often packaged as ‘human rights’, but the toolkit is familiar: coaching, paperwork, and performance.

The pipeline depends on a simple mechanism: documents. A widely circulated clip shows Simranjit Singh Mann (President, Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar)) describing issuing ‘letters’ used for asylum or immigration pathways to raise money for his political party. This was not only social-media rumour. The Economic Times ran a video report summarizing the controversy and the alleged admission about charging money per letter, while The Print reported on Punjabi illegal migration routes and described reliance on asylum letters and the surrounding political ecosystem. When intermediaries can mass-produce ‘persecution letters’ and coached narratives, asylum becomes a marketplace and the integrity cost is paid by everyone else.

A related thread amplifying the issue is here:

The second layer of evidence is adjudication. When these claims are tested against proof, many do not survive. In Canada, The Indian Express reported that at least 30 Federal Court judicial reviews tied to Khalistan-linked claims were dismissed in 2025, with judges giving ‘minimal weight’ to last-minute social-media posts, referendum cards, and templated affidavits. Hindustan Times summarized the same pattern and noted only a small number were sent back for rehearing.

Canadian legal reporting has also highlighted Federal Court-upheld refugee denials where evidence was found insufficient to substantiate persecution claims. Earlier legal summaries tracked rejected India/Sikh-identity claims where core elements could not be established on the evidence presented. (Lawyers Weekly summary, May 2016.)

The third layer is international: other democracies are seeing similar credibility gaps. In Australia, SBS Punjabi reported a tribunal finding that an applicant had fabricated persecution claims, including claimed political links.

In the UK, a High Court decision records an asylum claim refused and certified as ‘clearly unfounded’ under section 94 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002. In New Zealand, Moneycontrol reported a tribunal rejecting an Indian Sikh man’s claim, citing inconsistencies and insufficient risk. Different legal systems, same conclusion: when evidence is tested, many narratives don’t hold.

This is the context in which policy choices in peer democracies make sense. In November 2023, the UK Home Office announced India would be added to its ‘safe states’ list under the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, facilitating removals and making most claims harder to sustain absent exceptional circumstances. It may be inaccurate to claim one sting ‘caused’ that decision, but it did expose exactly why safe-state tools exist: to prevent a high-volume, low-credibility claim stream from overwhelming the system while preserving an exception route for genuinely individualized risk.

Canada should draw the practical lesson, because Canada’s scale is now unforgiving. The Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 notes that before the modern determination framework matured, inland refugee claims were at the level of ‘hundreds per year.’ (Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21, undated background page.)

Today, the Immigration and Refugee Board’s Refugee Protection Division shows 190,039 claims referred in 2024, with 272,440 pending at year-end. (IRB–RPD statistics, 2024.) India has become one of the largest source countries: 32,563 claims referred in 2024 (about 17% of all referrals), and 17,835 in 2025 (about 16.5%). (IRB–RPD statistics, 2024.) When volumes are that high, even a small percentage of coached, brokered, document-manufactured claims can distort the entire system.

That leads to the policy conclusion Canada keeps avoiding: Canada should treat India as a safe country of origin for most asylum and human-rights claims, while preserving a narrow, individualized pathway for exceptional cases supported by strong evidence. This debate should not be taboo. The question is not whether India is perfect. No country is.

The question is whether Canada should continue treating India, one of the world’s largest democracies with elections, courts, a vibrant press, and internal legal remedies, as presumptively equivalent to states where dissent reliably ends in disappearance. India’s democracy does not require Canada to ‘certify’ it; Canada does need to certify something, and that is the integrity of its own asylum system. A safe-country designation is not a medal for India. It is a governance tool for Canada.

Canada can remain committed to refugee protection while acknowledging what these outcomes signal: the system is being exploited, and exploiters rely on Canada’s procedural fairness as cover.

Canada should also take an immediate integrity step: any claims that relied on letters attributed to Simranjit Singh Mann should be re-examined and reconsidered, with document forensics where appropriate and consequences for intermediaries who knowingly facilitated falsified evidence. If inputs are compromised, outcomes cannot be trusted and a protection system that cannot revisit compromised inputs is not protection. It is a subscription service.

This is not an attack on Indians, Sikhs, or dissent. It is recognition that asylum is not a lifestyle option, not a business model, and not a political shield. It is protection for the genuinely persecuted and Canada should start governing like it still believes that.

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not reflect Milli Chronicle’s point-of-view.

Nancy had said she was unsafe. She had said her home was targeted. She had gone to police with names.

Nancy Grewal was a Canadian Sikh woman who came to Canada in 2018 to work, support her family, and build a life through sheer effort. She worked in Windsor, Ontario, as a personal support worker, often long hours, and became known in her union as a committed member and steward. But beyond her work, she became known for something else: she spoke openly against the violent Khalistan movement and against those she believed wielded fear and influence within her community.

That public voice came with a cost. According to CityNews Canada reporting on March 5, 2026, Nancy’s sister, Alishaa Grewal, said Nancy had been receiving threats, believed she was being followed, and had already gone to police with the names of people she feared. Alishaa described the killing as a “preplanned murder” and “revenge” for Nancy’s videos. These details place Nancy’s death in the context of repeated warnings, not sudden chaos.

On the night of March 3, 2026, Nancy was stabbed outside a home on Todd Lane in LaSalle, Ontario, shortly before 9:30 p.m., after finishing work at a client’s residence. CityNews reported that she was attacked outside and “stabbed continuously.” LaSalle Police later said the killing was “not a random act of violence” and was being investigated as “an intentional act against her.” The Ontario Provincial Police were later brought in to assist.

What makes this case especially troubling is that Nancy had already described the danger in her own words. In a video recorded before her death, she said someone had thrown gasoline on the front porch of her house in November 2025 and stated plainly: “I’m a Canadian citizen, but I don’t feel safe in this country right now.” In that same video, she alleged that the man behind the attack was linked to Gurdwara Khalsa Parkash in Maidstone. She also connected that intimidation to an earlier shooting near St. Rose Avenue and Wyandotte Street East in Windsor.

Local reporting in the Windsor Star confirms that Windsor police investigated shots fired in that area on March 9, 2023, at the location (St. Rose Avenue and Wyandotte Street East) that houses Pal’s Auto Service. In Nancy’s telling, these were not isolated incidents—they formed part of a pattern.

Her account went further. Nancy said the “real man” behind the attacks never comes forward himself, but instead “hires repeat offenders and criminals to do the job.” She described a family with a criminal background, said one man had already faced a drug case, and claimed his son kept illegal weapons in a vehicle and tried to dispose of them before police caught him.

That detail gives particular relevance to the public record surrounding Gurfathe “Laddi” Singh Kooner, as reported by the Windsor Star. Reporting on Gurfathe Kooner’s case (son of Avtar Singh Kooner) stated that he was seen tossing a bag from the window of his F-150 pickup, with the recovered bag containing guns and ammunition. Nancy did not name him directly, but the overlap between her description and that record is striking.

After Nancy was killed, her mother’s videos further sharpened the picture. She said Nancy was brutally killed by enemies she had long feared, that those enemies were tied to Gurdwara Khalsa Parkash in Maidstone, and that Avtar Singh Kooner was among the men Nancy feared. She said Nancy had been pressured to apologize to him, that people linked to the gurdwara threatened she would lose “her job” and “her home,” and that someone had previously tried to attack her at home but fled when cameras were noticed.

She also said Nancy had reported “each and everything” to police, including submitting a letter. CityNews independently reported that Nancy had indeed gone to police and supplied the names of people she feared.

The name Avtar Singh Kooner also carries historical weight. Air India inquiry materials record that RCMP investigators searched his residence for guns in June 1985. On Avtar’s social media, he appears in a photograph with Lakhbir Singh Rode, nephew of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. Rode has been identified in public archival and terrorism-related references as a figure associated with the International Sikh Youth Federation, an organization listed in Canada as a terrorist entity.

That history may not answer the question of who killed Nancy Grewal, but it gives the local network she and her mother described a deeper and more serious context.

In the aftermath of the murder, Nancy’s mother was later seen softening or retracting parts of her earlier accusations. Even so, the core facts did not change: Nancy had said she was unsafe. She had said her home was targeted. She had gone to police with names. Then she was killed in what police themselves described as an intentional act.

Nancy Grewal’s story is not simply the story of a murder. It is the story of a working woman who warned that she was under threat, identified the people she feared, and was killed anyway. Her family, and much of the wider community, are now living not only with grief but with fear—and they are demanding justice.

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not reflect Milli Chronicle’s point-of-view.