Three men accused of killing local Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar arrived in B.C. over the weekend and appeared before a justice of the peace on Saturday.
Kamalpreet Singh, 22, Karan Brar, 22, and Karanpreet Singh, 28, were arrested in Edmonton on Friday morning.
They were detained in B.C. on detention orders and will appear in court on Tuesday to consult their legal counsel.
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It is believed all three entered the country on student visas. However, Immigration Minister Marc Miller said on Monday that he could not confirm whether the three suspects in Nijjar’s case were on student visas.
They are facing first-degree murder charges for the June 2023 killing of Nijjar, who was fatally shot as he was leaving his gurdwara in Surrey.
“Right now, we need to find out who’s behind this,” Gurpreet Singh with Spice Radio told Global News on Monday.
“People will be following the trial very closely, will be following the events closely to see who were the people behind this because our prime minister said in the fall that India could be behind this, so the biggest question is who those masterminds are.”
Last September, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stood up in Parliament and said there was evidence linking Nijjar’s killing to “agents of the Indian government.”
The Indian government denied those claims but relations between the two countries have since been strained.
“How come were they given clearance and given passports to travel to Canada, given their possible criminality back home?” Singh said.
“That is a question that needs to be asked. If they had some ties to (Lawrence) Bishnoi or any other gang in India, it was the police’s duty of due diligence before giving them travel documents or clearance to travel to Canada.”