Sikh separatist leader attacked by gunfire on California interstate
Gunmen fired at a truck transporting a Sikh political leader near Sacramento.
The incident is one of several targeting Sikh separatists in North America in recent months.
Satinder Pal Singh Raju, an organizer in the Khalistan movement, which calls for Sikhs to have a country of their own in the Punjab region of India, survived the attack on Interstate 505 about 30 miles west of Sacramento in unincorporated Yolo County. The California Highway Patrol was notified of the incident at 11:37 p.m. on Aug. 11, CHP spokesperson Rodney Fitzhugh said.
A Sikh temple in Stockton is a key part of a movement to form a breakaway republic thousands of miles away in India.
Video posted on social media by Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, lawyer and spokesperson for Sikhs for Justice, shows four bullet holes in the driver’s window of Raju’s car, with two additional dents on the front window near the passenger’s side.
Raju was a passenger in the car, which he rode in with two friends on the way to a restaurant for a late-night meal.
His organization, Sikhs for Justice, believes it to be an assassination attempt. Authorities have made no arrests and have not announced a motive.
Pannun was the target of a foiled assassination attempt in the U.S. in 2023, which U.S. officials have said was connected to the Indian government. The Indian government has denied involvement. Pannun has been charged with terrorism in India for advocating for an independent Sikh state and clashed with the ruling government of Narendra Modi.
“Modi 3.0 Regime is continuing with its policy of transnational repression to violently suppress the global Khalistan Referendum campaign seeking liberation of Punjab from Indian occupation,” Pannun said in a statement on Aug. 19. “India’s unabated transnational violence cannot stop the voting process started by the Referendum campaigners.”
“This is one more example of India’s aggression,” Pannun added in an interview with The Times. “But this is the life given to us as part of this group.”
Pannun said Raju and the Sikhs for Justice team had recently organized an event in Calgary in late July as well as events in San Francisco and Sacramento earlier this year.
The gatherings were part of referendum votes on an independent Sikh nation that the organization has held for several years in the U.S. and other countries. The voting events, which this year have attracted tens of thousands of Sikhs in California, are nonbinding and largely symbolic.
Speaking to The Times, Raju — who works as a trucker — said that the violence would not deter his political advocacy.
“The day of our death is already written. I am happy to survive. But this won’t change the work that we do,” said Raju, who said he was currently helping Sikh activists organize a November referendum in New Zealand.
Raju was a close associate of Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was assassinated in 2023 in Surrey, in the Canadian province of British Columbia. The shooting reignited fear among Sikhs over accusations of an escalating campaign of cross-border repression. In May, three Indian men were charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder in Nijjar’s killing.
Earlier this year, the houses of two Sikh activists were hit by gunfire in Surrey and the Ontario city of Brampton, Canada. No one was injured in either incident, but Sikh separatists maintain these were also assassination attempts.
Sign up for Essential California
The most important California stories and recommendations in your inbox every morning.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
