An associate of murdered Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar threatened to sue the Surrey School District after it cancelled the contract to host an unofficial referendum vote at Tamanawis Secondary.
Documents obtained from the school district under the freedom of information law include the Aug. 8 agreement to rent school facilities on Sept. 9-10 to Sikhs For Justice (SFJ), an organization campaigning for the creation of a Sikh state in Punjab called Khalistan.
The Indian government does not recognize the referendum. It banned SFJ in 2019 and, in 2020, deemed SFJ’s New York-based lawyer Gurpatwant Singh Pannun a terrorist.
Pannun did not respond for comment.
SFJ agreed to pay $4,088.70, including GST, for rent, chairs and staff time. But the school district cancelled the contract a week before the event, citing a violation of advertising policies. SFJ promoted the Sept. 10 vote with a poster that depicted a muscular arm, labelled Sikhs For Justice, stabbing the barrel of a machine gun, labelled India, with a silver pen, underneath a photograph of the school.
Liane Ricou, the school district’s director of advancement, gave an SFJ representative a site tour on Aug. 31 and summarized the logistics meeting in a Sept. 1 email that included a reminder about the district’s ban on ads containing guns.
“This means you can have advertising in the community, online, in media announcing the vote and the location at Tamanawis but those messages should not include images of weapons or any violent language or imagery for example,” Ricou wrote. “This is the same for any signage you put up on site at the school on the day of the event.”
Seven hours later, the board received an email from a community member that took issue with both the machine gun image and the event’s dedication to a Sikh separatist killed in 1992 in India.
“Why are they promoting a known terrorist on the school premises and what effect will this have on young kids?” said the email, whose author’s name was censored due to the privacy law.
Talwinder Singh Parmar was considered by a 2010 Canadian judicial inquiry to be the mastermind of the 1985 Air India Flight 182 bombing that killed 329 people, mostly Canadians. His image appeared on an event poster with Nijjar, who was killed June 18 outside the Guru Nanak temple in Surrey. Two suspects remain at-large.
Ricou sent another reminder on Sept. 2, but got no response. She sent an immediate cancellation notice on Sept. 3, citing the contract section against inappropriate events or activities.
Another correspondent, whose identity was also withheld due to privacy, wrote the board Sept. 4, alleging foreign interference and accusing the school district of discrimination.
“We believe that Tamanawis School venue has been cancelled at the behest of the Indian lobby and for reasons that flagrantly violate fundamental rights of Canadian Sikhs, and hence we demand immediate redress and investigation of this matter,” said the email.
"The Indian newspapers in India reported the cancellation prior to the email sent to the organizers and the district media announcement.”
SFJ moved the event to the Guru Nanak temple on Sept. 10. But three days prior Pannun sent a letter to the school district demanding the contract be reinstated. Otherwise, he warned SFJ would take action for breach of contract and violation of the B.C. Human Rights Code and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms section guaranteeing freedom of expression.
“The event (Khalistan Referendum Voting) organized by Sikhs For Justice is entirely peaceful and in line with the principles of democracy and freedom as enshrined in the UN Charter and Canadian Charter,” Pannun’s letter said. “Any attempt to curtail such an event on discriminatory and unfounded grounds is both unlawful and unacceptable.”
Pannun claimed SFJ had removed the gun image from promotional materials, but accused the school district of misconstructing the poster and falsely associating the event with violence.
“These materials were promoting a message of non-violence depicting the ‘gun’ being disabled by the ‘pen’. SFJ’s poster unequivocally depicted the message that ‘Pen Is Mightier Than The Gun,’” said Pannun’s letter.
Just over a week later, on Sept. 18, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau revealed in the House of Commons that Canada had intelligence pointing to Indian government involvement in Nijjar’s murder. That ignited a diplomatic row with India, which retaliated by temporarily ending visa services and expelling Canadian diplomats.
Late last month, the U.S. Department of Justice announced charges against Nikhil Gupta, an Indian citizen arrested June 30 in the Czech Republic. Prosecutors allege that Gupta was recruited by an associate in the Indian government in a murder-for-hire scheme targeting Pannun.
