Tonight in Washington D.C., a suspect of Indian descent attacked a prominent U.S. press dinner, an event full of journalists and operatives. The timing was electric: days after President Trump branded India a “hellhole.” Coincidence? Intelligence agencies across three continents had already built files on this pattern. This was not the beginning. It was the moment the curtain slipped.
THE DOCUMENTED INCIDENTS: A Global Paper Trail
Canada: The Assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar
On June 18 2023 Hardeep Singh Nijjar 45-year-old Canadian citizen, Sikh community leader, and advocate for Khalistan was shot dead by two masked gunmen outside the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in Surrey, British Columbia. They fired a dozen bullets, twelve in total. Surveillance cameras caught everything. Later on, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made a speech in Parliament and directly accused that the murder was credibly linked to agents of the Indian government. India strongly denied it.
Canada expelled a senior Indian diplomat and in a tit-for-tat action, India expelled 41 Canadian diplomats. Hence, historically these two countries have broken their diplomatic ties. CSIS informed the Five Eyes alliance and the relations between Canada and India hit their lowest point since 1971. In fact, India labeled Nijjar a terrorist in July 2020 but Canada has never recognized this label. Then in May 2024 the Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrested four Indian nationals. The prosecutors contend that the operation was directed by the Bishnoi criminal network intermediaries who have well-established links with Indian intelligence handlers.
United States: The Pannu Murder-for-Hire Plot
In November 2023, the U.S. Department of Justice revealed a great shock for South Asian diplomatic circles through an indictment. Among others, Nikhil Gupta, an Indian national and an alleged criminal fixer was charged with conspiracy to murder-for-hire the victim being Gurpatwant Singh Pannu dual U.S.Canadian citizen, Sikh attorney, and founder of Sikhs For Justice. Court documents laid bare operating facts: a $15,000 upfront payment, a handler named “CC-1” (identified as an officer of India’s Research and Analysis Wing, RAW), and a potential killer who was an FBI undercover agent. The plot failed. Gupta was extradited from the Czech Republic. The State Department formally summoned India’s Ambassador. India announced an internal inquiry, but CC-1 has never been publicly charged or identified.
Australia: HSS Networks and ASIO Surveillance
Australia’s ASIO has put Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS) the international wing of India’s RSS under surveillance. The “Boondi Incident” revolves around the bullying of Sikh and Kashmiri protesters, and it seems that the HSS local branches might have been helping the foreigners under the instructions of their leaders. Australia’s Home Affairs was made public in 2024 that it had told Five Eyes partners about “foreign interference issues” originating from South Asia. Monitoring programs continue.
United Kingdom: The London Targets
According to reports MI5 the British intelligence, has cautioned at least two Sikh activists in the UK that they had credible threats from Indian state actors. “Duty to warn” notices are given when the threat information is very likely to be true. One of the targets, who has been very vocal about the Khalistan referendum, was officially informed in November 2023. The Counter Terrorism Command of Scotland Yard has opened a preliminary inquiry. The UK being very sensitive in its response is partly due to the ongoing UK-India Free Trade Agreement negotiations, which are security and economic priorities in conflict.
Additional Surveillance and Criminal Proxies
Besides the murder, a month after the incident, at a time when Khalistan supporters had attacked the Indian Consulate in San Francisco, Indian officials handed over the names of protest organizers to the U.S. authorities for surveillance. The ACLU accused this as a foreign government using the power of the U.S. in targeting its residents on the American soil. At the beginning of 2024, it was revealed by Canada’s National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians that Indian agents had done unauthorized surveillance on a number of people including Arshdeep Singh Gill. The committee described this interference in Canada as a major threat to the country’s sovereignty.
An explosive dimension is the alleged weaponization of Lawrence Bishnoi’s feared transnational criminal syndicate as a proxy for Indian intelligence. Outsourcing political violence to criminal gangs creates deliberate deniability. Canadian prosecutors allege the Nijjar triggermen were recruited through Bishnoi channels. The gang has claimed responsibility for attacks in India and Canada, and issued public threats against prominent figures, including Bollywood actor Salman Khan, demonstrating the network’s operational reach across continents.
The Numbers That Build the Case
The total international Indian community amounts to 32 million people, with 4. 4 million in America, 1. 9 million in the UK, 1. 8 million in Canada, and 783,000 in Australia. RAW, India’s intelligence agency, founded in 1968, is believed to have an annual budget of around $3 billion. Supported by India’s GDP of $3. 9 trillion, the state machinery is extremely powerful.
Consequently, Freedom House listed India in 2024 alongside China, Russia, and Iran for transnational repression. Three of the five “Five Eyes” nations are implicated, leading to formal diplomatic protests and the expulsion of 41 Canadian diplomats.
THE SPECULATIONS: What the Intelligence World Is Saying
Theory 1: The RAW Doctrine Shift. Multiple former intelligence officials describe a fundamental operational shift within RAW. Historically confining covert activity to Pakistan and Bangladesh, RAW has allegedly exported its playbook westward, targeting diaspora communities in democratic nations. The primary trigger is the Khalistan referendum movement India considers these non-binding independence votes as dangers to its existence, and the timing of major incidents is very closely linked to the unveiling of referendum cycles.
Theory 2: The “Pre-Terrorist” Labeling Pipeline. Critics point out a very troubling trend: India classifies diaspora activists as terrorists under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act many months before they actually become victims of threats. Nijjar and Pannun got their terrorist tags in 2020. Analysts argue this pre-labeling functions as legal architecture to justify covert operations domestically.
Theory 3: The Five Eyes Reckoning. Geopolitically, three Five Eyes nations are now formally investigating the same state actor for transnational repression. This creates a structural crisis in the Quad alliance, where India is simultaneously a strategic partner against China and an active counterintelligence concern.
The Dossier Is Open
Three continents. Six documented incidents. One criminal network. The world’s largest democracy stands formally accused by sophisticated intelligence communities of state-sponsored transnational repression. The FBI investigation is active. The RCMP prosecution is proceeding. MI5 has warned British citizens, and ASIO is watching. India keeps denying. The files keep growing. And somewhere in the gap between those two facts, the truth is being documented, one indictment at a time