After admitting to foreign interference, Patrick Brown remains silent on Indian government involvement in threats to Brampton’s Sikh community

Amid the swirl of information about India’s Bishnoi gang and its alleged involvement in criminal activity targeting Canada’s Sikh community, ranging from extortion to murder, Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown continues to ignore alleged links to the Indian government, despite his constant visits to the country, close friendship with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and longstanding ties to the ruling party, the BJP.

Despite evidence that the Bishnoi gang, led by Lawrence Bishnoi, is working as a government proxy targeting Sikhs in Canada—Brown has remained silent.

“We reached a point where we felt it was imperative to confront the government of India,” RCMP Commissioner Michael Duheme said during a bombshell press conference in October when India’s involvement in organized crime targeting Sikh Canadians was outlined by the top brass of the Mounties.

“Links tying agents of the government of India to homicides and violent acts” and “the use of organized crime to create perception of unsafe environment targeting the South Asian community in Canada (specifically Sikhs advocating for more autonomy in India)” had been uncovered by the RCMP, Duheme announced. 

He revealed that Indian consular officials had been clandestinely gathering information on Canadian Sikhs for the Indian government. 

“Businesses were coerced and threatened into working with the government of India. The information collected by the government of India is then used to target members of the South Asian community.”

Assistant RCMP Commissioner Brigitte Gauvin detailed more of the evidence against the Indian government that had been collected. “Homicides, extortions and other acts of violence… have been occurring in Canada.”

They connected their evidence to a U.S. case that includes extensive evidence of an Indian government plot to kill Sikhs in the U.S. and Canada.

“I doubt it very much if they have a different way of operating in different countries,” Duheme said. “I think the operation that they conduct in foreign countries is probably similar around the world.”

Gauvin then linked the Indian government to organized crime operating as proxies for it in Canada to specifically target the Sikh community here. 

“What we have seen is…the use of organized crime elements and it’s been publicly attributed and claimed by one organized crime group in particular, which is the Bishnoi group…and we believe that that group is connected to agents of the government of India.”

It was a stunning public announcement that sent shockwaves from Ottawa to New Delhi and escalated the mounting diplomatic war between the two countries. 

The RCMP emphasized that the primary goal of the disclosure was to inform Sikh Canadians of the very real threat to their community members across the country. The two top officials with Canada’s national police force revealed that “duty to warn” notices had been issued to specific individuals after the 2023 assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, an advocate for Sikh self-determination in India who was gunned down in B.C. by hit men hired by agents of the Indian government, according to the detailed evidence released last year in a jaw-dropping U.S. Department of Justice indictment.  

The Indian crime boss named by the RCMP, Lawrence Bishnoi, has been behind bars since 2014 in Ahmedabad, India, the hometown of the country’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi. Bishnoi is facing dozens of charges and has been accused by police in India of orchestrating high profile murders, including the killings of a prominent politician and famous Punjabi-Canadian singer and rapper, Shubhdeep Singh Sidhu, known as Sidhu Moose Wala. Bishnoi, while behind bars, has also allegedly threatened to murder one of Bollywood’s biggest stars, Salman Khan.  According to numerous reports the Bishnoi gang or group has some 700 members.

According to Indian media reports the Bishnoi group recently claimed responsibility for the May 12 murder of Harjeet Singh Dhadda, a Brampton businessman who was gunned down in a Mississauga parking lot, after he allegedly refused to pay $500,000 in an extortion plot. 

B.C. Premier David Eby first called for the group to be labelled a terrorist entity by the Canadian government last month. Then Mayor Brown called for the same.

In an interview with NOW Toronto, Brown claimed Peel Police have “already apprehended individuals associated with the group”. Peel Police would not confirm his claim. Requests for comment sent to the force and Mayor Brown were not returned.

While alarming announcements were recently made by Peel Police about organized crime rings targeting the local Sikh community, Brown has ignored the connections between the Bishnoi group and the Indian government, which he has close ties to. 

He has credited much of his political success to Modi, still visits the country regularly (more than two-dozen times and counting) and received the assistance of the Indian PM’s ruling party to win the Ontario PC leadership in 2015 (Brown credited the BJP for delivering the victory after he admittedly exploited South Asian communities across Ontario to win a leadership race that did not protect against the manipulation of ballots in ridings across the province where only a few dozen votes could deliver huge overall point totals). 

In his 2018 memoir, Takedown: The Attempted Political Assassination of Patrick Brown, he details the VIP treatment Modi had been giving him while visiting. “And while back home, I was having trouble getting permission to go to the bathroom, in India, Modi began promoting me as a friend. He’d invite me to lunch with Bollywood stars… and with billionaires such as Ratan Tata, who has a net worth of about $70 billion US… He had me sitting at tables with the who’s who of India… I was walking around with a big stick. I was given state status. I would travel around with three vans in front of me and three vans behind. There were guys with machine guns to protect me.”  

Despite his unparalleled bond with Modi, unlike anything another Canadian politician has enjoyed, the Brampton mayor, whose city has one of the largest Sikh populations outside India, refuses to connect the shocking recent news about the targeting of Sikh Canadians by organized crime to the Indian government. 

During a July 9 press conference at Peel Police Headquarters in Mississauga to announce arrests made in connection to violent robberies across Peel, Constable Tyler Bell-Morena said the mounting extortions and other crimes against Sikhs in Peel had not been connected to India.

When asked about any possible India connection, a similar response was given during another high profile announcement in June regarding the targeting of South Asians across Peel, after police arrested 18 individuals and laid 97 charges including fraud, illegal possession of firearms and extortion. Peel Police officials said no link had been found between those arrested and Indian gangs, but in reference to other arrests, one senior police official did say, “we know that some of these offences have been done in the name of international ties.” 

Tyler Bell-Morena, a spokesperson for Peel Police, said a connection had yet to be found between the arrests for violent robberies announced on July 9 and the Bishnoi gang.

(Muhammad Hamza/The Pointer)

The World Sikh Organization is demanding Canadian officials take action against the Indian government and its criminal proxies, to ensure the safety of Canadian citizens. 

“The Bishnoi gang has been used as a proxy by the Government of India to target Sikhs in Canada with murders, extortions and other violent crimes,” WSO President Danish Singh said. “A terrorist designation is an essential first step that will give police stronger investigative tools and allow them to freeze the gang’s assets, sending a clear signal that state-sponsored violence has no place in Canada. We also call on the federal government to impose targeted sanctions on Indian officials involved in directing or funding the Bishnoi network.”

Brown’s failure to draw a direct line between the gang and the Indian government is now being questioned. 

Balpreet Singh, legal counsel at the World Sikh Organization (WSO), says Brown’s ongoing failure to criticize Modi and the BJP government flies in the face of clear evidence shared by Canadian law enforcement last year linking the Bishnoi gang to the Indian government.

"I think it's very clear from the RCMP announcement in October 2024 that the Bishnoi gang is linked to the Government of India," he told The Pointer.

"Our own national security and intelligence advisor during the public safety committee hearings has clearly said that the Indian government has provided information to the Bishnoi gang and directed criminal activities here in Canada. So it's already on the record that the Bishnoi gang is affiliated with and is directed by the Government of India.”

He continued: “So why Mayor Brown or others have not said that explicitly, they can answer for themselves, but the RCMP and the National Security and Intelligence Advisor have all said on the record that the Bishnoi gang is directed by, linked to, and associated with the government of India."

Significant evidence came to light when Nathalie Drouin, a national security advisor in former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s government, and now working for Carney’s Liberals, testified during the House of Commons national security committee in October last year. She provided evidence that the Indian government is gathering information about Indian nationals in Canada through proxies and diplomatic channels, and passing that information to officials in New Delhi, allegedly working with the Bishnoi network.

She also informed the committee that the same criminal network is involved in orchestrating killings, extortion plots and other crimes in Canada.

"I think it's very important that the Bishnoi gang is listed as a terrorist entity, but I think the next step after that is to identify who are the directing minds and the finances of this group are," Balpreet Singh said. "From what we understand, this chain of command goes all the way to Prime Minister Modi. It goes to at least Amit Shah, who's Prime Minister Modi's right-hand man. So we want the Bishnoi gang to be listed, but we also want sanctions against the members of the Indian government who are directing this criminal organization."

Brown’s refusal to answer questions about his ongoing silence on the evidence against the Indian government, tying it to violent crimes against Sikh Canadians, follows years of public statements he has made about Modi:

• “My good friend and ‘brother’ Narendra Modi.”
• “In my multitude of meetings with Modi, I have always been impressed by his intellect, sincerity, and humility.”
• “I am proud to count him as a friend, and I thank him for his counsel…”.
• “Whenever he was taking me around in Gujarat, he always said, 'Patrick is a Gujarati', and he said to everyone 'You should refer to Patrick as Patrickbhai (brother)'". 

These are a sampling of the words Brown has routinely used publicly about Modi, the man whose BJP government is currently accused of orchestrating the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in British Columbia in 2023 and plotting to assassinate and harass other Canadian Sikhs.

Patrick Brown took a break from the Ontario PC leadership in 2015 to visit Prime Minister Narendra Modi in India when Brown was getting help from the BJP to sell memberships in Ontario.

(Patrick Brown/X)

Alongside the RCMP’s bombshell announcement last fall, The Washington Post, in an explosive report from October 2024 using unnamed Canadian officials, directly linked the North American assassination plots to murder Sikh advocates to the highest ranks of the Modi government, which continues to deny any involvement, despite the mounting evidence.

Officials told The Post a command “chain” including “Indian diplomats in Canada collect intelligence on alleged Sikh separatists” and that information is used by Indian intelligence to target Canadian citizens, singling out Lawrence Bishnoi who allegedly has helped the Modi government attack Sikhs in Canada and the U.S.

In even more damning allegations, the American newspaper reported the man orchestrating this alleged criminal enterprise is Amit Shah, according to Canadian officials The Post spoke with. He is Modi’s right-hand man and India’s controversial Minister for External Affairs and Home Minister, who oversees the country’s national security. Shah has made no secret of his views about religious minorities in the country, calling Muslims “termites” and “cockroaches”, in keeping with the BJP’s ultra-Hindu-nationalist position that India must erase all remnants of culture, religion and history that is not part of the Hindu tradition. 

Patrick Brown with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and controversial BJP politician Yogi Adityanath, who groups in Canada want banned from ever visiting the country due to his repulsive commentary against Muslims.

(X/Supplied)

Two indictments released by the U.S Justice Department, one in the summer of 2023, and the second, in October last year, provide detailed evidence that Modi’s government was involved in the plot to murder Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was killed in June 2023 and another plan to kill, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a dual Canadian-American Sikh activist in New York. The criminal plot was foiled by U.S. law enforcement agencies.  

Brown's personal ties with the Indian PM are not a secret. He has visited India more than two-dozen times with little to no information provided to authorities about the nature of the trips.

As Mayor of Brampton, Brown’s staff, on at least one occasion in 2019, responded to The Pointer’s questions about why he was there, claiming it was a “personal trip”, his 19th to the country, even though it was later acknowledged that Brown met with senior BJP politicians and other Indian officials during the visit.

In his own memoir, published in 2018, Brown describes the lengths he went to please Modi when accusations of the PM’s past continued to haunt him, after he had been accused of allowing the mass killings of Muslims during communal riots allegedly stoked by Modi when he was chief minister of Gujarat (equivalent of a premier). Despite the dangerous implications for Canadian national security, which Brown appears oblivious to throughout much of his book, he unwittingly provided readers with the blueprint Modi used to groom the ambitious young Canadian politician. 

During one trip, while Brown was a backbench Barrie-area MP in the Stephen Harper government, he describes receiving a call while “en route” to India, on an unsanctioned visit, from “Canada’s high commissioner, ordering us to turn around and come back to Canada.”

“The [Indian] government had ordered a 200-foot Canadian flag,” Brown wrote. “They wanted to send the message that Modi… was not a pariah… we didn’t have backing of our government… Modi never forgot who was with him when he needed support.”

Modi and Brown shared each other’s private cell phone numbers, he wrote.

He later described what Modi, according to Brown, said to Harper during a visit to Ottawa: “Patrick Brown is a friend; he has been to India many, many times. If he wanted to run in India, he would win as an MP there.”

He has also bragged about a group called “Gujaratis For Patrick” named after Modi’s home state, where he rose as a political figure. The group, Brown has said publicly, has helped him raise funds and sign up memberships in Canada for Brown’s political campaigns here.

“I sold three times the number of party memberships as my [PC leadership] opponents, thanks to the Gujarati community,” Brown said in 2015. “They tell me, ‘We need Ontario’s first Gujarati premier.’”

According to a 2024 report on foreign interference from Canada’s National Security and Intelligence Committee, this scenario directly mirrors their observations of how foreign government actors work to influence politicians in Canada. 

“Foreign interference should be understood as a long-term effort, akin to espionage, using inducements or threats. Both dynamics enable the manipulation of targets when required, for example, through requests for inappropriate or special favours. Inducement typically involves two steps. First, a foreign actor offers the influential Canadian money or other favours. This may include direct payments, cash, in-kind campaign contributions, investment in their region, all-expenses-paid trips to the foreign country, or promises of an employment opportunity or a paid position requiring little to no work after leaving public office," the report detailed. “The process may go on for years, and may develop at a slow enough pace that allows some Canadian targets to avoid, at least for a while, having to confront head-on that they are engaged in or assisting foreign interference. Some influential Canadians may self-censor on issues considered by a foreign country to be contentious, while others may internalize foreign messages and align themselves with the positions of these countries. Others may take action in the interest of the foreign state regardless of Canada’s position, and may even act in ways detrimental to Canada’s interests.”

After years of being groomed by Indian officials, Brown admitted that he succumbed to the demands of the Indian government in a Parliamentary committee hearing investigating Indian foreign interference. During his video testimony before the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security on December 5, 2024, Brown addressed questions about the Indian government’s involvement in his 2022 Conservative Party of Canada leadership campaign. Brown revealed campaign co-chair, MP Michelle Rempel Garner, received an angry phone call from the Consul General of India asking Brown to stop using the term "Sikh Nation" (which he would utter in front of Sikh audiences during his campaign), prompting him to change his wording.

Parliamentarians have heard from Canadian intelligence officials how politicians like Brown are brought under the influence of foreign actors seeking to interfere with elections and decision making here. 

Patrick Brown admitted to succumbing to foreign interference during parliamentary testimony on December 5.

(Government of Canada)

Pickering—Uxbridge Liberal MP (at the time) Jennifer O’Connell questioned Brown about the conference call in which MP Rempel Garner shared the Indian government’s disappointment about the term "Sikh Nation" that he had used while campaigning. She asked who from the Indian Consulate had influenced his campaign to change its language. Brown, instead of responding to the question, changed the subject to why Garner left his campaign team.

"The concern that was raised that I had used the term on several occasions, Sikh nation, and the Consul General had it expressed directly to MP Garner," he told the committee. 

"That was something that obviously they (Indian government officials) didn't agree with. It could be viewed in nationalistic terms towards the Sikh community. And so at the conference call, I had a deputy campaign, national campaign manager, Jaskaran Sandhu, who we sort of assigned to talk to Michelle about it, after the conference call. And what was agreed upon is that I wouldn't use the word Sikh nation. I'd use the word Sikh-Qom."

O’Connell then tied Brown to the Indian government.

“Do you think it's appropriate for a foreign government to ask a sitting MP, a co-chair on a leadership race, to raise their objections to your campaign, not based on constituents, but based on [a] foreign government’s opinion? I think that constitutes foreign interference pretty clearly.”

Liberal MP Mark Gerretsen asked if Brown understood he had been influenced by a foreign government. 

“By your own admission you already said that they, that often these consular generals act in an aggressive manner and don’t make you comfortable. If that’s not foreign interference, then what is Mr. Brown?” 

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