Khalistani activist’s life at risk from India, warns UK intelligence

LONDON: The UK intelligence has advised a high-profile Khalistani Sikh activist in the UK that he faces a threat to his life from the Indian government agents in the UK.

Paramjeet Singh Pamma — the UK and Europe coordinator for Khalistan Referendum campaign and a close associated of slain Hardeep Singh Nijjar and Gurpatwant Singh Pannun — has been advised by the UK intelligence through several visits to increase his security due to intelligence suggesting threats to his safety. Its understood the security warning to Pamma has come from MI5 — the UK premier intelligence agency for the domestic security.

The Guardian newspaper reported that the threat level to Pamma is so serious that he doesn’t live with his family in West London near Southall Gurdwara on the police advice and is not allowed to share his location with anyone due to the imminent threat he is facing due to his activism for Khalistan and the Khalistan Referendum campaign.

It’s understood that Pamma received the latest safety warning from the UK intelligence – that Indian state agents operating on UK soil are out to kill him — consistently over the last several months.

Pamma told The Guardian the threats were linked to the Indian government as part of the relentless transnational repression by the Indian state. The Indian embassy declined to comment.

“The repression we are going through has been relentless, it is crossing borders and reaching into our families now. This is terror, basically, by the Indian government,” said Pamma, who has been forced to live separately from his family after threats.

Pamma said he has regularly been reporting threats to the UK police but they only began to take his complaints seriously after the 2023 killing of Nijjar, a prominent Sikh activist, in Canada, which the country’s then-prime minister, Justin Trudeau, said intelligence agencies had linked to Indian government agents.

In the same year, US prosecutors accused an agent of the Indian government of directing the attempted assassination of SFJ Counsel General Pannun, an American citizen, on US soil.

A Home Office spokesperson said they did not comment on individual cases or intelligence matters. “We are proud of our diverse communities, and British Sikhs make an immense contribution to the strength of our society. Their safety, like that of everyone in the United Kingdom, remains our highest priority,” the spokesperson said.

The Indian government has long been concerned about the Sikh nationalist movement, which is largely diaspora-led, and campaigns for a Sikh homeland known as Khalistan to be created in the Punjab, in north-west India.

In 1985, Khalistani militants smuggled a bomb onto Air India flight 182, which exploded off the coast of Ireland, killing all 329 people onboard — the worst act of aviation terrorism before the 9/11 attacks.

Pamma is reported in Indian media to have previously been a fundraiser for Babbar Khalsa International, which investigators believe was responsible for the bombing. He called the allegations “fake propaganda”, condemned the act of terrorism, and welcomed “any inquiry in any case” against him.

Pamma’s elder brother was killed by Indian police for his Khalistan activism in 1991. Pamma was picked up multiple times and tortured by police before leaving India and being given political asylum in the UK in 2000. He was arrested in 2010 after authorities in Punjab said they suspected him of involvement in a murder but UK counter-terrorism police could find no evidence against him.

In 2015, he was detained while on holiday in Portugal, but a judge threw out India’s attempt to make him stand trial on terrorism charges.

In the same year, senior Indian diplomat Samant Goel approached Pamma in London and asked him to quit Khalistan or face dire consequences. Pamma refused and reported the threats to the UK intelligence. After returning from London, Goel became the chief of India’s external intelligence agency, Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). From his new position, Goel ordered assassination plots of Khalistan Referendum activists in USA, Canada and UK.

According to MI5, foreign governments are increasingly targeting dissidents on UK soil, and the number of investigations into state threats has grown by 48% since 2022. In its 2024-25 report on transnational repression, the Joint Committee on Human Rights listed India as a country of concern.

The Guardian wrote that Pamma’s threat issue has risen as the UK pursues a closer relationship with Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government, seeing it as a key partner to balance China’s growing power.

In 2023, a Birmingham-based Sikh activist, Avtar Singh Khanda, died suddenly after complaining that Indian police were harassing him over the phone and threatening his family in Punjab. A pathologist found that the result of the postmortem did not mean “that a poisoning can be completely excluded”.

Gurcharan Singh, a Sikh nationalist activist, has also been told by UK police that they know of credible threats to his safety.

In West London’s Slough, Singh has a private security team and receives visits from officers nearly every two months. Two days before a planned protest in March against the Indian foreign minister’s visit to London, Singh said he was told in person by two officers that it was not safe to attend and that his safety could not be guaranteed, the Guardian wrote.

Singh’s wife died in May 2023, and he feels there are striking similarities between the circumstances of her death and those of Avtar Singh Khanda.

The High Commission of India in London did not respond to a request for comment.