OTTAWA: One of the suspects in the killing of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar, has said in a social media video that he entered Canada on a ‘study permit’ which only took him days to obtain, Canada-based global news reported.
The accused, Karan Brar, in a video posted online in 2019, said he applied for a student visa through EthicWorks Immigration Services in Bathinda, in the Indian state of Punjab.
He said he received his study visa days later, according to a translation of his Punjabi-language statement, as per Global News.
The promotional video and a picture of Brar, who the firm claimed was from Kotkapura, a city north of Bathinda, were uploaded on EthicWorks’ Facebook page.
“Congratulations Karan Brar for the Canada study visa,” the caption below the video read. “One more happy client from Kotkapura,” reported Global News.
Immigration Minister Marc Miller has declined to answer questions about how the suspects came to Canada, but online posts indicate that Brar arrived on a student permit three years before the killing.
According to another Facebook page purportedly owned by Brar, he moved to Edmonton on May 4, 2020, after starting his studies at Bow Valley College in Calgary on April 30, 2020, Global News reported.
However, questions concerning the subject have not yet received a response from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.
Brar, 22, Karanpreet Singh, 28, and Kamalpreet Singh, 22, were all taken into custody in Edmonton on Friday. They are accused of murder and conspiracy; they appeared in court in Surrey, British Columbia on Tuesday.
Members of the Sikh Community from British Columbia crowded a Surrey courtroom on Tuesday as three Indian nationals accused of Hardeep Singh Nijjar’s killing made their first court appearance by video, according to Globe and Mail, a Canada-based news website.
As the trio, dressed in orange jumpsuits, appeared before court, pro-Khalistani protesters chanted slogans and held placards, outside the Surrey provincial court, blaming India’s government for the killing.
The three men were taken into custody in Edmonton last week on Friday and are accused of first-degree murder and murderous conspiracy in connection with the June 2023 shooting of Nijjar, which severely damaged Canada’s relations with India.
Notably, ties between India and Canada have been strained after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused agents of the Indian government of killing Nijjar. However, India has dismissed the accusations as “absurd” and “motivated”.
Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was designated a terrorist by India’s National Investigation Agency in 2020, was shot and killed as he came out of a Gurdwara in Surrey in June last year. The video of his killing that reportedly surfaced in March this year showed Nijjar being shot by armed men in what has been described as a “contract killing.” Last week, Canadian police released photographs of all three persons arrested in the killing of India-designated terrorist, Nijjar last year amid an ongoing probe into alleged connections of the Indian government.
Along with photographs of the three accused, the Canadian police also released the photographs of the car believed to have been used by the suspects in the time leading up to the homicide, in and around the Surrey area.
The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team (IHIT) of Surrey, RCMP had said that on the morning of May 3, IHIT investigators, with the assistance of members from the British Columbia and Alberta RCMP and the Edmonton Police Service, arrested the three men for the June 2023 killing of Nijjar.