New York: Ten days after the killing of Ripudaman Singh Malik, who had been acquitted of charges of bombing an Air India plane, two Indian-origin men have been shot dead in Canada. The killing of the two men is similar to that of Ripudaman. Meninder Dhaliwal and Satindera Gill were killed at the British Columbia resort village of Whistler. They were shot in daytime while sitting in a car in a public place like Ripudaman, as in that incident, a car was also found burning nearby. The officials have not linked the two incidents as yet.
Dhaliwal, along with his brother Barinder, was on a list of six men, four of them of Indian descent, released last year by the Vancouver Police Department which called them “gangsters” who “pose a significant risk to the safety of the public”.
Adam Palmer Police Chief warned while releasing their pictures, “Our police intelligence leads us to believe that the individuals we have identified today may be targeted by rival gang members”. Dhaliwal was a member of a gang known as “Brother’s Keeper” (BK), while Gill was not known to be involved with gangs.
Once a supporter of the Sikh separatist Khalistan movement, he later made peace with the Indian government, writing to Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier this year, “I am writing you this to express my deep heartfelt gratitude for the unprecedented positive steps taken by yourself to redress long-reading Sikh demands and grievances.” He was taken off the Indian government’s blacklist and granted a visa to visit India in 2019.
