Gunshots, arson, threats: B.C.’s extortion crisis

Front Burner

After meeting on the sidelines of the G20 in South Africa, Prime Minister Mark Carney and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi have announced they would restart trade talks.

It’s a long way from where the two countries have been for the last several years. Relations blew up in 2023 after former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused agents of India’s government of being involved in the murder of a Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

Then, last year, the RCMP publicly accused such agents of being involved in a campaign of homicides, extortions and threats targeting the South Asian community on Canadian soil. Recently, the director of CSIS suggested that the problem hasn’t gone away.

In B.C.’s Lower Mainland, over 100 reports of extortion were made in the last year.

Two CBC reporters who have been covering this issue give us a closer look at what exactly has been happening on the ground in Canada, particularly when it comes to extortion, who might be behind it, and how this all connects to the larger context of a thawing relationship with India.

Baneet Braich is based out of Abbotsford, B.C. And Evan Dyer is with CBC’s Parliamentary bureau.

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