VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Canada – A fourth Indian national living in Canada has been charged with the murder of a Sikh separatist leader last June, which became the center of a diplomatic dispute with India.
B.C.’s Integrated Homicide Investigation Team (IHIT) said in a statement Saturday night that Amandeep Singh, 22, was already in the custody of Peel Regional Police in Ontario on non-firearms-related charges.
“IHIT sought the evidence and obtained sufficient information for the B.C. Attorney’s Office to charge Amandeep Singh with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder,” the police release said.
Investigators say they cannot disclose further details of the arrest due to ongoing investigations and court proceedings.
Earlier this month, police arrested three Indian nationals – Karan Brar, Kamalpreet Singh and Karanpreet Singh – in Edmonton, and charged them with first-degree murder and conspiracy to kill Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was shot dead in the parking lot of the Surrey, British Columbia, Sikh temple he led.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sparked a diplomatic row with India in September when he said there were “credible allegations” of Indian involvement in Nijjar’s murder.
India had accused Nijjar of links to terrorism, but he angrily denied involvement in the murder. In response to the allegations, India told Canada last year to recall 41 of its 62 diplomats in the country. Tensions persist, but have eased somewhat since then.
A spokesman for the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara temple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Temple worshippers demonstrated outside the Surrey provincial court on Tuesday as the first three detainees appeared in court via video.
A bloody Sikh insurgency rocked northern India in the 1970s and 1980s until it was crushed by a government crackdown in which thousands were killed, including prominent Sikh leaders.