TORONTO, Canada: A Sikh named as a co-conspirator in an indictment charging seven Canadian Sikhs with conspiracy to commit terrorism in India was shot and killed by security forces in India a few days after the arrests in Ontario, the Toronto Globe and Mail says.

The dead man, Balbir Singh, ‘was the younger brother of Tejinder Singh Kaloe, 36, one of the seven arrested June 14 in Hamilton by the RCMP, the newspaper quotes police intelligence sources as saying Friday.

Michael Code, a Toronto lawyer representing four of the seven accused, said the death might have been the result of a special information-sharing agreement set up between Canadian and Indian police last November.

Code said the Canadian information might have led to the killing, and he wants the federal government to demand a full report on the death.

The RCMP are refusing to say whether they sent information on the man to Indian authorities, although wiretap transcripts for May 22 produced at the bail hearing for the seven show the RCMP knew the man sought a separate Sikh state and was underground in India.

Code said wiretap transcripts provided by police show Balbir Singh was to have been smuggled out of India to Pakistan because of the “repression against the Sikhs by the Indian authorities”.

The lawyer said he believes ‘Singh was to have been taken out as a refugee to a Western country. The Globe and Mail quotes police sources as saying he was shot and killed about two days after the Ontario arrests in Punjab, in one of the smaller districts outside Amritsar.

His death has shocked many members of the Canadian Sikh community, who wonder whether the shooting resulted from the agreement between the Canadian and Indian police to exchange information.

In Hamilton, the Sikh temple has arranged a special religious service for Singh today and Sunday.

A spokesman for the Department of External Affairs said an oral agreement to share information and intelligence was reached between External Affairs Minister Joe Clark and his counterpart in India in November.

The spokesman said the two wanted police and intelligence agencies— the RCMP and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service in Canada and the Central Bureau of Investigation in India — to increase the flow of information about terrorism.

Article extracted from this publication >> July 25, 1986