Angry Planet - A Crash Course on Indian Assassinations and ISIS in Canada

Episode Date: December 17, 2024

Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.comThis week Angry Planet turns its attention to Canada. Global News investigative journalist Stewart Bell joins us to walk through his two latest pieces and give Matthew a crash course on Canadian history. What do outlaw motorcycle gangs, extrajudicial assassinations, an Indian separatist movement, and a resurgent Islamic State all have in common?Canada.Bell is here to explain it all.The pros and cons of extremists recruiting on social mediaAre you talking to a fed?Remembering Air India Flight 182 or Matthew learns Canadian historyThe Khalistan movementWhat makes a 14-year-old interested in Islamic State?Eric Hoffer on what makes a True BelieverSpreading ideologies with an answering machineThe budding new era of political violenceVisas as a tool of foreign interferenceUsing gangs to assassinate your political enemiesThe ups and downs of hiring biker gangs for intelligence workIndia’s superpower glow upISIS arrests are spiking in Canada and youths are driving the resurgenceInvestigation: Visas have become an Indian foreign interference toolSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Love this podcast. Support this show through the ACAST supporter feature. It's up to you how much you give, and there's no regular commitment. Just click the link in the show description to support now. Hello and welcome to another conversation about conflict on an angry planet. I am Matthew Galt. Jason Fields is once again in the wind. I am digitally sitting here with Stuart Bell, who I was poking around, Stuart, on the website.

Looking for someone to talk to me about another story that I want to explain to my audience about Canada that has to do with India and assassinations. When I came across your piece, ISIS arrests are spiking in Canada and youths are driving the resurgence and it's kind of captivated by it in a horrifying way. And I reached out and wanted to have you come on the show and explain it to us. Can you introduce yourself and kind of give your background? Sure. My name's Stu Bell. I currently work at Global News and the investigative team. And I write a lot about national security issues.

I guess the way I look at it is sort of how issues around the world play out in Canada and also the reverse, how Canadians get involved in issues around the world that have to do with security. Ironically, after your introduction, And I actually have a piece out this morning that I've been working on for a long time that has to do with India and the assassinations. Oh, well, that I may pick your brain about that then at the end of this. You're welcome to, yes. At the end of this.

You know, not to give it away, but I have another Canadian journalist friend. And he's like, have you heard about these motorcycle gangs and the separatists and the assassins? And I was like, no, what are you talking about? and he kind of gave me like the brief rundown. And I was like, that's absolutely bizarre. And I haven't heard a thing about it in America. Well, there is a, there is a convergence that's happening. And it's one of the big national security issues that I know a lot of Western countries are dealing with, the U.S. and Canada is that increasingly we're seeing foreign, hostile foreign governments using organized crime to carry out their dirty work assassinations.

in particular. So it's, I think it's going to be a big issue going forward. Let's, I do want to get to that. Let's table that and get back to ISIS. So this is one of those where, you know,

you see the headline in your, and I thought, sir, I thought, I thought we defeated ISIS and, you know, it was all over. And,

you know, that war has been fought and won. But not quite. Right? You tell me what the Islamic State looks like now and what you're seeing in Canada. Yeah, I mean, you're correct. The Islamic State was defeated in one sense, particularly by the U.S. led coalition and the Kurds that were doing the fighting on the ground.

They did in 2019, managed to take back the last bit of territory that ISIS held in Syria. But, you know, and for a period, there was a lull. but it didn't disappear. It just kind of scattered both to Africa and South Asia with ISIS K, but also online. They really have doubled down on their online propaganda, and particularly going after young people, going into platforms where youths congregate and chat. And it's had a real impact. because a lot of the resurgence that we've seen in the last year and a bit has been a result of youths.

Like, in some cases, very young minors getting involved in Islamic State activities. Yeah, as young as 13, right? Very young, yes. Like, yeah, many of the charges we've seen internationally, but also in Canada, have been minors. They've been juveniles going to the juvenile system. And these are not necessarily people that were just doing, you know, just showing an interest. We've seen actual plots like in Ottawa.

There was a plot to attack the Jewish community at a, apparently at a protest. And that was conducted by two minors. So, yeah, it's one of the issues that is concerning. A lot of people that are in this field. I think just maybe last week, the RCMP put out a statement, along with the Five Eyes allies, that was particularly focused on their concerns about the increasing involvement of youths in extremism. Yeah, and I want to be clear that we are not just, talking about

posting and reposting and going on TikTok and liking something. This is, as you said, plots. There's evidence that some of these kids were about to do something terrible, right? And there's been multiple cases. Was it like 20 in the past

few years? Well, since the spike in I guess the resurgence of ISIS that we've seen in Canada, there's been, there were 20 cases overall, but almost half them were, were,

uh, were, uh, were, uh, that's just Canada. But yeah, I mean,

there are, there are cases where the police have stepped in when people have been just posting stuff online that, uh, or communicating with people, but they tend to deal with those with peace bonds, which are a lower, uh,

um, I guess tool than an actual criminal charge. Where are they just, they simply, um, use under peace bonds are simply, you know, given a list of conditions that they have to follow. But yes, a fair number of the cases we've seen in Canada involving youth have been, in fact, plots. There was in the one in Ottawa I discussed, there was one in Calgary where they were focusing on pride events in Calgary.

Have any of these plots ever come to fruition? Has anyone died? You know, the recent ones have not. And that's, that's one of the interesting things about the current wave of ISIS that we're seeing, is that on the one hand, you know, a lot of this is social media driven. Groups like ISIS have learned how to really penetrate different platforms and to reach out to younger people and mold them at an earlier stage. And so, you know, in that sense, social media and messaging has been a real boon to extremists that are trying to drag people into their causes. But on the other hand, it also leaves a trail that maybe didn't exist in the past when people were recruiting, you know, face to face. And so that has allowed investigators to penetrate these groups, infiltrate.

infiltrate them, open up dialogue sometimes in an undercover capacity with young people, and then bring these things to a conclusion before it gets to the stage of things blowing up. So that's an interesting development in the way that recruiting is happening, but also the way that investigators have learned how to exploit that. that to get at them before things happen. Yeah, you may think that you're, you know, it's impossible if you're a kid to tell if you're talking to an actual Islamic State Representative or Canadian law enforcement at a certain point, right?

Yeah, and in fact, when you read the discussions that have happened, you see how, I mean, I think people generally are naive about the level to which their online discussions are private. But in these discussions where they're actual talking about plotting and destruction and things that are illegal, you can see the very amateur ways that they try to disguise it and then go back and forth. You know, some of the discussions with undercover officers or the ones that were monitored by police. You can see they almost jokingly use code words and then they bounce. back to talking about, you know, overtly blowing things up. I guess that's another advantage of,

for investigators of these young extremists being so young that they're not that good. So you have, you have read through some of the investigation notes and like the transcripts of the conversations, sounds like. Yeah, and some of the, in some of the charges and some of the cases,

their public. So you can see what's being discussed. Something that is there ever a sense that some of this feels a little like entrapment? I know that that's like an accusation that's been leveled against American law enforcement quite a bit, especially during some of the war on terror years. Some federal investigations felt a little like they were leading people to a conclusion. Did you ever get that sense kind of looking through? what you saw. I mean, I have seen those complaints. There was a case, El Banasawi, a couple of years ago,

where it was a quite young guy, 18, just turned 18, who was talking online. He was from Mississauga, Ontario. He was talking online with both an actual Islamic State member in Syria, but also with an undercover officer who had infiltrated this group. And he, El Banasawi crossed into the U.S. and was arrested and is serving a pretty lengthy sentence right now. And him and his family have complained that he was entrapped. There was an investigation that was done in Canada, actually, into that specific issue. It found that really he wasn't. But, you know, it's a fine line.

And I think investigators probably are aware that they can only go so far before a judge is going to look at what they're doing. and see it as entrapment. But there haven't been any cases I've seen where judges have actually found that that was the case. And it's also one of these things where, if you get it wrong the other way, the consequences are pretty dire, right? Yeah, I mean, I think the priority for Canada anyway

is prevention. and, you know, they just do what they can within the limits of the law to make sure that these, whatever plots are being discussed, never come to fruition. For Canada, the moment that is in the back of the minds of many people, I think, that are interested in this issue is Air India, which to circle back to India was, you know, in 1985, a fairly bungled, investigation for a lot of reasons. And over 300 people died as a result. The majority of them were Canadian citizens. We have memorials every year for the Air India bombings. And the lesson is usually, you know, never again. We can't let this happen again.

So I'm embarrassed to say, I don't know this story. Well, um, 1985, um, it was really the peak of, uh, uh, the Kalesstan movement in India and also within the diaspora. And there was violence in India itself, and there were terrorist attacks internationally that were conducted by members of the diaspora. In BC, several extremists put bombs onto Air India flights. and one exploded at NEREDA Airport and killed two baggage handlers.

The other exploded in midair off the coast of Ireland and killed over 300 passengers and crew. And that occurred right at the creation of the Canadian Intelligence Service when it was carved out of the RCMP National Security Service and the investigation. was not done very well. And even though there were sort of warning signs in advance, police weren't able to stop that one.

So it's a big, it is a big, I mean, at the time it was the biggest terrorist tech in the world until 9-11. And it happened on our soil. And it's one that it's kind of a touchstone for people to go back to that, you know, we can't ignore these issues. because, you know, it's devastating. Right.

You can't have another intelligence failure. It haunts Canada the same way that 9-11 haunts America. Yeah, absolutely. Gotcha. What platforms is the Islamic State using? Is this mostly on TikTok, telegram? Where are they going? Well, it is, we spoke to a number of people and also looked at these different investigation reports.

And you do see gaming platforms, Snapchat, all that kind of stuff. But to be honest, it really looks like, even though some of these more obscure platforms are being used for sure, I think it looks like the majority of this stuff is taking place on pretty mainstream platforms still, even Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, things like that. So, I mean, it's the whole, it's whatever. Some of them you'll see some of these cases you look at.

They're using like a half dozen different platforms to talk. Or they may migrate from one to the next, depending on what they're talking about. But it's really the whole gamut. I mean, but, you know, there are, And this was one of the messages that the RCMP had said to us when we interviewed their natural security boss that they are seeing gaming platforms being used as a kind of recruiting tool, which is something I hadn't heard of before. But it does in fact pop up in some of the cases that we examined. Which gaming platforms?

I know you mentioned Roblox in the piece, but are there others? Is it like Steam? Are there specific games they're going into? I don't think, I mean, yeah, that was one of them. I don't think it's particular to any one. I think it's just whatever. You know, there's a variety of them that they were using. What's the pitch?

Like, how do you get a 14-year-old interested in the Islamic State? I mean, that's a good question. I've been looking at this question for a long time. I'm not sure there's any pat answer really as to why certain people get engaged in this thing. I mean, I guess my takeaway from looking at a lot of these cases is that it tends to be partly a result of ideological, the attraction of ideological systems to some people.

You know, they, for people that are in a certain state of mind, they can offer kind of reassurance. It's, you know, the, the, the great thing about life is, you know, we spend our whole life working through what it's all about and what does it mean and what comes after. But for people that are kind of in a maybe chaotic state or confused or whatever, having Pat, you know, answers can be attractive. But, you know, I think a lot of it also has to do with the individual. It's not necessarily the just the attraction of ideology. It has to do with the person that's being lured into it, being in a certain frame of mind or needing something in their life. needing some kind of sense of belonging or beyond themselves.

Really, I think all the research I've seen, there's been so much research on that question, especially since 9-11, and really it all comes down to in the end that the radicalization process is very individual. It depends on the specific person. And it's a combination of external factors and the draw of ideology.

internal things that are happening within that person's life and within their own mind. Are there then commonalities in a target recruit? What are you looking for? Or maybe not even what are you looking for, but like what is it that makes this attractive? I think it's, you know, we all go through, especially in our younger years. I think everyone goes through this process of asking themselves who they are and where they fit in in the world and what their contribution is going to be. And some people find these types of ideologies attractive that this is their place. This is how they're going to contribute.

This is what they were here to do. It's wrong. It's a, it's, uh, a lot of bad decisions. But, um, for, you know, enough people, it, it tends to, it can be attractive. Um, it's, it's also kind of an easy one, you know, all the answers are there. This is what you have to do. And then, uh, you will be this or that. And God will recognize you. So, yeah, I just think it appeals to those universal uncertainties that we all have.

Who am I and what's my purpose? Are these kids from immigrant backgrounds? Is there a cultural difference between them and other people? Like, what is the, you know what I mean? Well, yes and no. I mean, it's both really. I mean, we, I've seen, I've seen that where the person that's being drawn into this maybe has, you know, they're experiencing the difficulties of fitting into a new society, which is completely natural. And sometimes that is enough to create those uncertainty.

that can push people in that direction. But I've also seen the exact opposite where there are a number of converts that have been drawn to the Islamic State. And these are people that, you know, that they don't have those issues at all. And yet we're still, have still been drawn into this.

So it's a bit of both. In the same way, you know, people ask the same question about parents and parental influence. It's, again, it's a 50. 50 that there are cases where the parents are the parents turn in the kid you know they're so aghast by their child's uh the things their child is saying and in some sense there may be an element of you know rebellion against parents and um you know how can you think the way you are

um but in a lot of other cases um you know you you look you look at the parents and you say, okay, now I get it. The apple has not fallen far from the tree. This kid has grown up in an environment where they've been clearly exposed to this type of thinking and it's not a surprise that they've taken it on. So it really is all over the place then. It really is kind of like these individual cases where it's just for whatever reason, the right combination of alienation and spending a little bit too much time online leads to

violence and potential violence. Yeah, like I say, there's so many academic researchers have taken on this question. And, you know, there are some commonalities I think they've come to, but really it is such an individual process that it's very difficult to draw sort of broad conclusions. Do you have, I'm sure you do, like to kind of change tracks just a little bit. Um, does Canada have any kind of white nationalist problem the way that America does? Absolutely. I mean, the last book I wrote was, uh, was about the far right in Canada. The far right in Canada is very much aligned with that in the U.S.

There's a lot of South connections. And, um, uh, through the 80s, we had the KKK here, the heritage front. Um, there was. quite a strong white nationalist movement through the 80s and early 90s, but it was, in that time, it was heavily infiltrated by intelligence and basically destroyed, but clearly has reemerged as it has in the U.S. The movements in the U.S. and Canada are very connected and tend to tend to rise and fall together. Do you see the similarities between how

Islamic state recruits and the kind of people that they go after and the way that white nationalism recruits? I mean, obviously they're looking at different population pools, but as we're talking, it just sounds very similar to me. Absolutely. I mean, they're birds of a feather. you know, there's even been cases where you've seen people recurred into both movements, the same people, right?

They were into one and then they went over to the other. And again, I think it's the commonality as somebody who's searching, looking for belonging. And it's the idea, you know, he was Eric Hoffer had the famous quote about, you know, I forget the exact words, but fanaticism doesn't necessarily arise from the strength of any ideology. It has to do with the person that's desperately seeking a hand to hold on to. So in that sense, I think in extremism, the ideology is often less important than the individual just looking for something. So yeah, I think there's a lot of commonalities between recruitment into any extremist movement. Do you feel like extremism has been getting worse in the past 10 years in the West?

I don't know if it's gotten worse because it's been pretty bad in the past, but I think it's migrated online where it's maybe more visible. you know, in the early days of white nationalism in Canada in the 80s, they used an answering machine to spread their message. They distributed a phone number. You had to call it and you would get the message on an answering machine. I mean, that's pretty primitive compared to just the vast global reach that people can have today using online platforms. So in that sense, it's worse in that it's more visible. whether it's more violent, I don't know. But it's certainly it's a lot easier to

spread a message and and to reach people around the world and draw them into whatever you're talking about. I guess I ask that if we can zoom out for just a second because I'm in this, I have this feeling

that we're in the middle of or maybe just at the beginning of something pretty bad in the West. And I like to remind the audience and I like to remind myself of just like how bad and violent the 60s and 70s were and that we've kind of forgotten that. And that we've been pretty lucky and have not had the kind of massive political violence that we saw then. But there's just a sense to me that people are detached from the political process at a large scale and from. society and from control over their own lives. And I think that all of that stuff spurs on

connect like people wanting to believe in something like the Islamic state or wanting to believe in the white nationalist movement or, you know, as is dominating the new cycle in America, wanting to take justice into their own hands and shoot a health care CEO in the street. It just feels like we're in a, in a precarious, moment right now. And I'm wondering how you see it or how you feel about it all. Yeah, I kind of agree. I mean, I think

one of the impacts of social media has been and the internet has been this polarization where we live in these worlds of self-enforcing beliefs and we don't

talk to each other. I mean, in the 60s and 70s, yes, there was a lot of violence, but people still talk to each other, I think. Now, you know, we live in these virtual worlds where it just seems like anything goes. And it's a lot easier to say things. It does seem a lot easier to say things in that virtual world to people that, you know, if you're standing in front of them, you might not say.

You might feel more of a human connection. There is kind of a dehumanization that happens to people that are communicating. online and I think maybe that drives part of what you're talking about. Yeah, when you don't have to look someone in the eyes and watch the micro expressions kind of flutter across their face when you say whatever you're going to say, that changes how you interact with a person. It's such a massive part of human communication that we've just kind of pulled out now. And a lot of us spend every day online gravitating,

towards groups that already agree with us. Yeah, and we're all doing it. To one extent or another, I think we're all doing it. And I think it is making us all crazy. Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, it's, you know, for white nationalists, they spread these, or ISIS, they spread these broad sort of concepts. And, you know, that don't necessarily,

have traction when you talk to people face to face. You can rail all you want against immigrants, but anybody who lives in the real world knows that the vast majority are good, hardworking people that you would be happy to have as neighbors. So yeah, the disconnect that has been created by this kind of virtual world that we live in is it's disturbing and you've got to wonder where we're heading with it.

No place good, I think. Can we switch tracks here and start talking about India and organized crime? Sure. All right. I'm going to warn you that I only have very vague understandings of what's going on here. But I think I know enough to ask the right questions at least. Can you tell me, you said you've got something, is it already, is it just, has it just come out or is it about to come out?

No, just this morning we published an investigation into how the Indian government and its agents have been using visas as a tool of foreign interference. Basically, there's a system that's been, this has been an untold story in the community for many, many years. For all the reasons that it's very difficult to talk about foreign interference, it's been a tough one to get out, but we basically, there are, has been a system operating in Canada and I'm sure elsewhere, where members of the diaspora, you know, there comes a point where they need to go to India or could be family reasons,

you know, a relative is dying, could be a lot of reasons, religious reasons. The gatekeepers in this system are the consulates that distribute visas and decide, whether you get one or not. And what we found is that they have been using visas as a lever to get people to do things that further the agenda of the Indian government. In a lot of cases, and this actually emerged, the RCMP, and Canadian officials talked about this a few weeks ago, they've been using visas as a lever to get people to conduct espionage in the community.

what we found in particular though was that for people that hold more prominent positions in the community they've been trying to get them to sign letters that support the Modi government and have renounced the calisthan movement so it's a interesting type of what's back way up there's a lot of stuff that i just i don't i just don't have a working knowledge of what is the calistan movement uh the calisthan movement is the movement that seeks independence for the Sikh majority uh Punjab which is predominantly with india a state within india it um there was a conflict in the 80s uh over the Punjab and uh the movement was pretty much crushed within india itself but within the diaspora

it remains pretty strong within elements of the diaspora. Although it's evolved, there was a point where it was quite violent, and we did have a number of incidents of terrorism, such as the India bombings that I mentioned, but over the years it's kind of evolved into mostly a peaceful protest and referendum movement that's encouraging independence for Kalesan. How big is the diaspora? The diaspora in Canada is very large.

It's one of the biggest, along with the UK. The number, I can't tell you offhand, but it's a significant number of people. A lot of people have come to countries like Canada as refugees because of being Sikhs or calisthan activists. They have been targeted in India. And there's within a fair element of the Sikh population in Canada, there are strong feelings about that and about the Calistan movement.

But it's something also that Indian government is very vocal about. They don't like that, and understandable to some point, they don't like that there is a separatist movement that seeks to attack the unity of their country that's operating within foreign countries, particularly the U.S., Canada and the UK. So, and over the years, this has been a bone of contention between Canada and India. India has been very outspoken about wanting Canada to crack down on those that it sees as terrorists. That's people that are promoting, um, uh, you know, separatism. And, um,

you know, a separate independent Calistan state. And, but within the last couple of years, India has become even more aggressive in the sense of, um, going after Calistan activists. And we had, I guess the peak of that was in June, 2023, when, the leader, one of the leaders of the Calisans movement in Canada, who was a temple president in British Columbia, was assassinated. And the Canadian government has linked that assassination to the government of India. There was a similar case in the U.S. where there was also an assassination plot against a New York-based Calston activist, but that one was disrupted and there had been some arrests made. And again, that was, that was a,

was connected back to Indian intelligence. And Indian intelligence is using outlaw gangs to exert its will in foreign countries, is the allegation, right? Exactly. So instead of having their own agents conduct these killings or other violence, there have been quite a range of violent attacks in Canada, arsons, that kind of stuff, extortion. what they've been doing is contracting gangs to do it or organized crime figures. In the U.S. case, there was an assassination plot against a Kalesdan figure named Panun,

and there was a well-known drug dealer that was brought in to arrange that. In Canada, they've been using gangs, in particular a gang called Bishnoi, which is a large Indian organized crime. crime group that has a presence in Canada. And they've been using Bishnoy members and other gangs, but mostly Bishnoy, to carry out these violent attacks on people that are being targeted because they're anti-Mody or they're part of the Kalesdan movement. What's in it for Bishnoy?

Yeah, good question. I mean, I think in a lot of these cases, it serves. it serves the Indian government on one hand. On the other, it allows, doing these types of attacks, allows gangs to maintain their dominance in whatever area they're in. And so the advantage, I think, is that these gangs get to, they're being paid, first of all. And also they, you know, they get to maintain their strength and superiority

in whatever field, drugs or whatever it is, that they're that they're trying to dominate in that region. Is there any kind of ideological component for them? Is there, are they Indian nationalists? Like, what's, you know, do they think anything about the grander political picture? I don't think so, no. I don't think it's, there's ideological alignment necessarily. I think it just has to do with mutual interests on both sides.

The system serves Indian government and it serves the gangs in their own, in their own way. Right. And it's not like the gangs are operating in India, so it's not a problem domestically. Well, they do operate in any of the leader of the Bishnoi gang is in fact imprisoned in India. But somehow from behind bars, he's been able to coordinate these attacks. But this problem actually goes beyond India. Iran, for example, has been doing the same thing.

There's been, there were some plots disclosed by the DOJ recently. that involved the use of organized crime. There was one particular where they'd tried to hire biker gang members from Canada to conduct an attack on a dissident in the U.S. Seen the same thing with Russia. In Europe, we've seen the Russians using Russian gangs to go after targets of the Kremlin in places like Spain. so it seems to be a new trend and it's it's advantageous to countries because it allows them to

draw a little bit of distance between themselves and the violence instead of you know you can imagine the Mossad for example you know they have their in when they have conducted assassinations abroad they've had their own highly trained operatives that have gone and done it but um This system allows, for example, somebody working in a embassy or consulate in a country like Canada to not have to get their hands dirty. They can instead hire somebody from the organized crime world to do that dirty work for them. Is it, do we have any idea what the success rate on something like this is compared to having your actual intelligence officers do it? Is this more effective or does that even matter? matter. Yeah, that's a good question because I think that's the downside of this whole thing. It sounds

great on paper, but then when you have completely incompetent 19-year-old gang members trying to carry out assassinations, one, they're not very good. And two, you know, because they're not ideologically invested, they're more likely to roll, I think. Yeah. Although, I should say, in some of the cases we've seen, I think the people that have been hired to do the actual shootings aren't necessarily even aware who they're doing it for.

There may be middle there's a middle man that arranges it. They don't know who they're killing or why. But that again allows them to distance themselves. But I think, yeah,

it's a weak system that hasn't worked that well, although it did work in the case of Nizjar and in British Columbia. And of course, that has caused huge foreign relations crisis between Canada and India. Yeah, what is, how are relations between Canada and India now? What is Trudeau said and like what, what is Modi said? Has he said anything? I'd say they're at one of their lowest points ever. It's Trudeau, for whatever reasons, in September, 2023, stood up in the House Commons and publicly accused India being behind the assassination of the temple leader in BC, which I think has proven to be correct from all the evidence I've seen.

in fact, this plot seems to reach right into the highest ranks of the Indian government right to Modi's right-hand man. But that really, speaking out in that way, a little bit prematurely, without being able to disclose the evidence behind it, opened him up to attacks and gave India the the window to just deny, which is what it's been doing all along. It's ironic because on the one hand, despite quite a vast amount of evidence that we've gathered in Canada that the Indian government has been waging a violence, a campaign of violence here against its opponents, India has just completely denied it. Whereas in the U.S., with the Pannoon case, where again, there was an assassination nation plot that was linked to not just to the Indian government to very specific individuals

who have been charged. India has kind of accepted that but portrayed it as a rogue operation. And I think that speaks to India's desire to maintain good relations with the U.S. while they believe that they can sort of bully Canada and get away with it. is there any kind of blowback domestically on onto the diaspora community like do do Canadians uh do Canadians then view their immigrant neighbors with suspicion because political violence from that country is spilled over into Canada I can't say I've seen that I mean, you know, maybe that could be a far right talking point, but, no, I mean, I think there's maybe the opposite of sense of, how dare you come into our country and kill people.

You know, regardless of what they were, what they believe, there is due process. there's a way to deal with these types of things. In the case of Nizjar, it's quite interesting because India had long accused him of being involved in terrorism. They had charged him in India. But the evidence, both that I've seen and that the RCMP, I think, was given in the process of India trying to get Canada to arrest. him was pretty flimsy and it was sort of a lot of so-and-so was arrested and under interrogations

said this and that well we know india conducts torture how reliable are you know confessions like that not at all not at all reliable so there there had been a lot of pressure to arrest nizjar and it never happened the rcm i wrote about this the rcmp considered the case to be pretty flimsy And so what did India do? It allegedly arranged as assassination and decided that if Canada wasn't going to take care of him, then they would do it themselves. And a lot of this happens, I think, within a larger geopolitical context where India is feeling a little bit empowered right now. the disillusion with China countries in the West

trying to pivot away from China looking for a new ally in South Asia have been turning to India and I think India has felt that and it'd be felt emboldened to do this type of thing in the last couple of years Yeah there's a sense that they are kind of a growing power

and they need to assert themselves especially under Modi, right? They are and there's you know, I mean, it is a growing power for sure. It's a very important power. But at the same time, I think within India, it's been a very convenient

political message for Modi as well. That's to inflate foreign threats and to portray yourself as dealing with them in a very Machiavellian sense, I think is something that has served the Modi government. The Indian press just kind of ridiculously conflates the degree of threat within Canada. They portray Canada as sort of, you know, calistani extremists running around conducting violence,

terrorists running free, terrorists connected to the government. There may be a semblance of truth to some of that, but it's very much exaggerated and that has fed into Modi and his ability to depict himself as the person who's standing up against those external threats. In what way is there a semblance of truth? Well, I mean, there is a history of violence in Canada that was conducted by Calistan extremists. You know, there were, as I mentioned, there were India, there were a number of other attacks. There have been some violence within the community between pro-Calistan and anti-Calistan sides. So, yeah, there has been, in the past, a violent component to the Kallistan movement. But as I say, that has pretty much gone away.

and it's it's become this sort of protest movement instead all right now walk me through with that kind of background so the Indian government is now using you've revealed in your reporting the visa process to also silence calistan critics or pro calisand critics yeah so I mean there's a huge

Indian diaspora within Canada. Many of them, they come to a point where they need to travel to India. And to do that, they need a visa for their Canadian passport. And what we've seen through the investigations

that have in the last couple of years, one, people have been denied visas but told if they want one, they have to conduct various tasks. And the RCMP has revealed that some of those tasks have been to spy on certain targets within the community to feed that information to the consulate in Canada. And that is fed back to Indian intelligence and it's been used to target people. But for people that are leaders of the community that hold prominent positions,

people that are influential. What we've seen is that the Indian government has tried to get them to sign letters or to make statements publicly that that basically support the Indian government and renounce the Kalasthan movement.

And in that way, they feel they can, I guess, undermine the Kalistan movement by having the most prominent members of the community, denounce it. So what you have, for example, the person that we profiled today, he was a temple leader.

He applied for a visa because his grandfather was ill. And he was denied a visa and then told, we're denying your visa because we don't like what you said about calisand in the temple. So one, that tells you that they're monitoring what's happening within the temple in Canada. And then two, this is at this stage, intermary, like middlemen sort of step in. And you have this letter that he's told to sign that supports the Modi government and its policies. So it's a way that the Indian government has tried to influence,

the talk around Calistan and the movement in Canada, and to do it by putting people in a very awkward position. So they have to choose. Do I sign this statement that completely goes against what I truly believe? That is that the Indian government is a great power that is democratic. I don't believe that, but if I want to see my grandfather before he dies, I have to sign it.

So it's a very, it's a very kind of sinister form of exploitation that has been happening. And it's something that has been talked about in the community a lot. It was just very challenging to get people to openly discuss it because for all the reasons that foreign influence is hard to report on because everybody has a relative back home that, you know, has been threatened or they're concerned about them. but this story basically unravels how this has worked and the involvement of

different actors within the community yeah tell me about as I'm looking over the story and kind of speed reading it while we're talking the broadcaster yeah so this individual that we reported that we told this story after he was denied of

visa who was referred to a individual in the community who is known as a very pro-India person he admits to having close connections to the Indian consulate and he

allegedly said you'll be getting a letter to sign and the letter that arrived was the one I described where he had to say that he supported the great democratic government of India and and renounced calistan.

So I spoke to this individual a number of times, and he clearly has a certain political pedigree. And I also spoke to a former member of parliament who said that he'd had a foreign interference briefing with the Canadian Intelligence Service, and during that briefing, they'd held up a picture of this man and said, be careful.

We're watching this guy. He also shot someone and kind of got away with it? He also shot somebody at the same temple where Hardy Nizhar was gunned down last year. And, yes. Yeah, it's a very twisted story. But, yeah, I mean, suffice it to say that. India, and we've seen

the reporting on this that's emerged through the foreign interference inquiry that's been happening in Canada, has I mean, first of all, identified India as the number two foreign interference threat to Canada behind China, but

also identified the role played by what they call proxy agents. These are people within the community that may be Canadian citizens, but that are acting uh,

on, at the behest of the foreign government. Um, yeah. All right. I think that that's the kind of dower note I like to end the show on. Okay. Uh,

Stuart Bell, thank you so much for coming on to Angry Planet and walking us through this. Where can people find your work? What are you working on now if you can share? Uh, well, still working on, ISIS and India in particular,

which, but I think now delving into Syria as well, which, actually, yeah, let me go out on that question. How does the fall of the Assad regime change things for the Islamic State? Yeah, well, it's, it's, that's one of those remains to be seen things. And obviously, HTS was not, allied with ISIS. I mean, there are connections historically. HDS goes back to ISIS and al-Qaeda.

But I guess it's a question of whether we... Yeah, it's difficult to say how HDS is going to move forward because they do have this pedigree. But they also, you know, ideologically, they're probably more aligned with ISIS than they are with the West. So are they going to be continuing? need to be pragmatic about their government and move forward or might they sort of extend a hand to ISIS or could there be an Afghanistan like situation where there's a level of

lawlessness that allows ISIS to continue or to have some kind of presence, as ISIS K has in Afghanistan but no it's a big big question that I can't really answer at this point all right well again sir thank you so much

for coming on to Angry Planet and walking us through this yeah my pleasure thank you very much for having me that's all for this week Angry Planet listeners as always Angry Planet is me Matthew Galt Jason Fields Kevin O'Dell if you like us if you really like us go to Angry Planet pod.com where you can sign up, kick us a few dollars a month, get bonus content, get commercial free early versions

of the show. It helps keep us afloat. We will be back next week with another conversation about conflict on an angry planet. Stay safe until then.