Validation for Sikh activists after Canada slams Indian tactics [Video]

Ottawa’s accusations this week detailing a deadly Indian campaign against its Canada-based critics may have further derailed bilateral relations — but to Sikh activists, the striking disclosures brought validation.

Canada has accused India of orchestrating the 2023 killing in Vancouver of 45-year-old naturalized Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a prominent campaigner for “Khalistan,” the fringe separatist movement for an independent Sikh homeland in India’s Punjab state.

In public comments this week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the national police said India’s targeting of Canadian Khalistan activists went beyond Nijjar’s killing, and has included a broad campaign of intimidation, violence and other threats.

India has dismissed the allegations.

“It was very validating,” Harinder Sohi told AFP at a thinly attended protest on Friday outside the Indian consulate in Toronto.

“This is something that we believed in for years and people weren’t listening to us,” the 42-year-old Khalistan activist said.

The dozens of protesters at Friday’s rally …