India’s global repression in spotlight after Sikh activist’s UK death linked to poisoning
London: The ugly face of Indian state-sponsored terrorism against Sikhs has once again surfaced on the international stage, as the renowned British newspaper The Guardian, revealed new details suggesting that prominent Sikh activist Avtar Singh Khanda, who died in the UK in 2023, may have been poisoned.
According to Kashmir Media Service, a consultant forensic pathologist, Dr. Ashley Fegan-Earl, found that the results of Khanda’s postmortem “do not exclude the possibility of poisoning”, The Guardian report says. He advised that investigators should consider whether Khanda was exposed to substances capable of triggering acute leukaemia. The 35-year-old activist died just four days after being admitted to a Birmingham hospital. The official cause of death was stated as acute myeloid leukaemia — a rare and aggressive blood cancer.
Following this revelation, Khanda’s family has renewed calls for an inquest. Barrister Michael Polak, representing the family, wrote to West Midlands Coroner Louise Hunt, pointing out that Khanda’s samples were not tested for nerve agents, biological or nuclear substances. He urged the coroner to reverse her earlier decision not to open a formal inquiry.
Khanda’s suspicious death occurred amid India’s expanding campaign of transnational repression targeting Sikh activists abroad. Within weeks of his death, two other Khalistani activists were murdered — one in Canada and another in Pakistan — while a third narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in the US, the Guardian reported.
Indian media had accused Khanda of taking down the Indian flag during a protest outside the Indian High Commission in London in March 2023 — an act that put him on the radar of the Delhi government.
The Guardian reported that Avtar Singh was granted political asylum in the UK in 2016 due to threats to his life from Indian agencies. His father and uncle were killed in extrajudicial encounters during the 1990s for supporting the Khalistan movement — a clear testament to Indian state oppression.
According to his close friend Jaswinder Singh, Avtar had been living in fear in the days leading up to his death, and felt that he was being tracked or followed. His family also revealed that his mother and sister were detained by Indian authorities during the search for separatist Sikh leader Amritpal Singh.
In his letter to the coroner, Polak noted that Khanda had been the subject of a “false and dangerous smear campaign” in Indian media, and had received death threats after the London protest.
Avtar Singh’s family has demanded a second postmortem and a full inquiry from the British government. Jagjit Singh, Khanda’s next of kin in the UK, said: “We want answers. How did Avtar die amidst all these threats? If it was Russia or Iran involved rather than India, this investigation would have been a whole different scale. Too many questions remain unanswered.”
Analysts warn that Indian intelligence agencies are using chemical weapons, nerve agents, and extrajudicial killings to silence Sikh voices abroad. Under the BJP-led government, targeted assassinations have become instruments of silencing dissent beyond Indian borders. They argue that Narendra Modi’s India has now become the global epicenter of state terrorism, where dissent, freedom of expression, and minority rights are being drowned in blood. If this trend continues, India risks becoming a fascist state disguised as a democracy, and emerge as a grave threat to global peace and human rights.
