LONDON: The British intelligence agency has warned that a high-profile Khalistani Sikh activist in the country faces a potential threat to his life from Indian government agents.
Paramjeet Singh Pamma, the UK and Europe coordinator for the Khalistan Referendum campaign and a close associate of the late Hardeep Singh Nijjar and Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, has been advised by UK authorities to increase his personal security following intelligence indicating threats to his safety.
Reports suggest that the warning was issued by MI5, the UK’s domestic security and intelligence agency, through multiple consultations with Pamma.
The Guardian reported that the threat to Paramjeet Singh Pamma is so severe that, on police advice, he does not live with his family in West London near the Southall Gurdwara and is prohibited from sharing his location with anyone.
The warnings are linked to his activism for Khalistan and the Khalistan Referendum campaign.
Sources indicate that Pamma has received repeated safety warnings from UK intelligence over the past several months, highlighting that Indian state agents operating in the UK may be targeting him for assassination.
Pamma told The Guardian that the threats are connected to the Indian government’s efforts, describing them as part of relentless transnational repression by the Indian state. The Indian embassy declined to comment.
He said, “The repression we are experiencing has been relentless. It is crossing borders and reaching into our families. This is essentially terror by the Indian government.”
Pamma stated that he has consistently reported threats to the UK police, but his concerns were only taken seriously after the 2023 assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a prominent Sikh activist in Canada, which then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said had been linked by intelligence agencies to Indian government agents.
In the same year, US prosecutors accused an Indian government agent of orchestrating an attempted assassination of SFJ Counsel General Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, an American citizen, on US soil.
In 2023, Birmingham-based Sikh activist Avtar Singh Khanda died suddenly after reporting that Indian police were harassing him by phone and threatening his family in Punjab.
A postmortem report noted that the findings “do not completely rule out the possibility of poisoning.”
Similarly, Sikh nationalist activist Gurcharan Singh has been informed by UK police that there are credible threats to his safety.
