Border agency clears employee after Indian media reports link him with terrorism

A Canada Border Services Agency superintendent is speaking out after being targeted by the Indian government with allegations of murder and terrorism — allegations Canadian authorities say are not backed by any evidence.

While Sundeep “Sunny” Singh Sidhu has been reinstated in his post with the CBSA, his lawyers say the government of Canada should have defended him more vigorously from a foreign government accused of mounting a hostile disinformation campaign in this country.

Sidhu has worked for the CBSA for two decades. He told CBC News he does not wear a turban, is not particularly religious and has no connections to Sikh separatist politics.

Nevertheless, last month Sidhu found his name and image plastered across multiple Indian news outlets citing Indian government sources. The Hindustan Times, which supports the government of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, described Sidhu as “a member of the banned International Sikh Youth Federation (ISYF), accused of promoting terrorist activities in Punjab.”

The paper also claimed that Sidhu “allegedly had ties with Pakistan-based Khalistan terrorist Lakhbir Singh Rode and other [Pakistani intelligence] operatives, reportedly playing a role in the 2020 assassination of Balwinder Singh Sandhu.”

Many of the Indian media reports cite the country’s National Investigation Agency as the source for their allegations against Sidhu.

“It’s almost laughable,” said Sidhu. “It’s like the alphabet soup of criminal organizations. I have zero links to any of these organizations. I’ve never supported these organizations. I don’t know any members in these organizations.”

On October 1, 2023, a co-worker told Sidhu that he had been named in a YouTube video posted by a former Indian army major named Gaurav Arya.

Arya is a pro-Modi influencer who appears to be close to India’s intelligence community.

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In a video purporting to list India’s enemies and fugitives living abroad, Arya identified Sidhu as a wanted terrorist involved in Sikh separatist militancy and shared his home address. The video remained on YouTube for several months but has since been removed.

“I reported these allegations to my employer,” Sidhu told CBC News.

CBSA reassigned Sidhu away from his frontline job and launched an investigation. He said the agency brought in the Canadian Security Intelligence Service to conduct two days of polygraph tests.

“I have been through a year-long investigation where they’ve talked to my family, they’ve talked to my coworkers, they’ve gone through my financial statements, they’ve gone through my bank statements, my telephone records,” Sidhu said.

‘Go and kill him’

Last month, almost a year after that initial video, Sidhu became the focus of news stories in Indian newspapers and television. He was the target of an avalanche of threats on social media.

One posting on X showed a satellite photo of a neighborhood with Sidhu’s home address marked on it and the caption, “Go and kill him.”

Sidhu had every reason to take the threats seriously. The claims being made against him online were similar to claims Indian government officials had made about the late Hardeep Singh Nijjar before his killing.

Nijjar, a Sikh-Canadian activist, was brazenly shot dead outside a Sikh temple in Surrey, B.C. on June 18, 2023. More than a year ago, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau publicly accused the Modi government of involvement in Nijjar’s death.

Last month, the head of the RCMP publicly accused agents of the Indian government of playing a role in “widespread violence” in Canada, including homicides.

An Indian man living in Winnipeg, Sukhdool Singh, was named in one of Arya’s videos and then shot dead the following day. Arya subsequently posted on X about the death.

Arya continues to take a strong interest in Canadian affairs. His videos harshly criticize Trudeau and promote Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre as a superior leader who can restore relations with India.

‘An orchestrated campaign’

Sidhu said he had no idea who Arya was before he saw the video.

Sidhu said he was born and raised in Prince George, B.C., hasn’t been to India since a wedding in 2018 and knows nothing about the 2020 murder to which Indian media reports have linked him.

Sidhu’s lawyer Jeffrey Kroeker, of Massey LLP in Toronto, said his client has been checked out thoroughly by his employer.

“They’ve spoken to his colleagues, his family, gone through his records, tracked his travel, his banking, polygraph-tested him,” he said.

“What we would like everyone to know is that there is an orchestrated campaign by a foreign entity that has nefarious purposes. They’ve accused him of something that is just patently not true.”

WATCH | Sidhu still believes he’s in danger: 

Canada Border Services Agency superintendent Sunny Sidhu says he’s afraid for his and his family’s safety after pro-Modi social media influencers called him a Khalistani terrorist in an online video that included pictures of his home.

Last month, CBSA told its employees it had found nothing to back up the claims and reinstated Sidhu.

“The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) has no evidence to support the allegations made in the articles against our employee Mr. Sidhu,” CBSA spokesperson Luke Reimer told CBC News.

‘False allegations’ spread through internal mail 

“The government needs to respond to allegations and they need to take these things seriously,” said Kroeker. “But … when the allegations are totally baseless and pulled out of thin air, there needs to be a full-throated response to clear the person and make sure that their reputation is upheld.”

When asked whether the government has taken those steps, Kroeker replied, “They have a lot more work to do.”

Sidhu’s lawyers say one of the frustrating aspects of CBSA’s investigation is that the agency’s media monitoring service automatically picked up news stories from Indian media labelling Sidhu a terrorist, and shared them with his colleagues in automated emails.

“False allegations were further amplified within the department,” said Kroeker.

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Read more: cbc.ca/1.7371969.

Reimer told CBC News that “daily media coverage summaries prepared for the CBSA are based on pre-determined keywords.”

“Dissemination of these summaries and unedited articles, regardless of tone or accuracy, does not imply endorsement of the content of these articles,” he added.

Kroeker said he believes the allegations against his client fit into an Indian government narrative that presents Canada as a safe haven for extremists, and the Trudeau government as complicit.

In the wake of the recent expulsions of Indian diplomats, the Modi government and pro-Modi Indian media have doubled down on portraying Canada as a lawless land where Khalistani terrorism and Punjabi gangsterism enjoy free rein.

‘Canary in the coal mine’

India’s Times Now television news reported last month that “it is of course no secret that under the unpopular and embattled Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Canada has become a safe haven.”

“Not only are the Khalistanis given a free run and platform, they’re also employed by the Canadian government! Can you believe that? Not only are they being shielded, dreaded terrorists are being employed by the Canadian government!”

Kroeker said Sidhu is “the canary in the coal mine” for a new kind of foreign interference that “is pervasive and is getting worse.”

“And now what’s going to start happening more and more is that governments around the world will try to undermine the credibility of loyal civil servants,” he said.

Kroeker said Canada needs to be quicker to defend its public servants from such attacks. Sidhu said he has no doubt that he was targeted because of his job.

“If I was Sunny the blueberry farmer, we wouldn’t be sitting here,” he said.

Sidhu said his family faced considerable hardship as a result of Arya’s allegations, and received no protection despite credible threats.

Although he’s now been cleared by CBSA, he said he believes he’s still in danger.

“I sometimes go to my car and I turn it on and I’m like, ‘Oh my God,’ fingers crossed,” he said.

Sidhu said he’s been told not to pick up his daughter at school for safety reasons.

“I’ve had to relocate my family to different houses,” he said, adding the ordeal has cost him tens of thousands of dollars.

“I’m a proud public servant. I love going to work every day. It’s a huge part of my identity. I’ve been doing it for 20 years.

“I want to continue protecting our country. What I want from my country is to protect me at this point.”

Dick Fadden, former director of CSIS, told CBC News that any agency involved in national security would have to investigate any serious allegation against an employee coming from a foreign government.

“I think in this case they were not only entitled, they were duty bound to have an administrative inquiry,” he said.

“It’s not so much the what, it’s the how. You have to make a judgment in every case. How serious is it? How much detail are you going to seek? Are you going to put the person on administrative leave or not?”

Fadden said India has a long history of making allegations without providing evidence. 

“As a matter of principle, he’s a Crown servant. He is being subjected to all of this because he’s a Crown servant, largely, I think,” he said. “So there is a duty of care and concern.

“And I can’t see any reasons why, with the vast resources of the Government of Canada, they couldn’t have put him in a better position than he appears to have been in.”

Fadden, the first director of CSIS to go public about foreign interference in Canadian politics, told CBC News that “the scope of activities that we would put under foreign interference continues to broaden” and could include false allegations intended to sow suspicion and discord.

“And if it is discovered that this is the case, I think the Government of Canada has an active obligation to protect its employees, much like somebody in the private sector would,” he said.