December 3,2025
RED FM News Desk
In a lawsuit filed in Ottawa, Sandeep Singh Sidhu described how, for the past two years, India had used him in a disinformation scheme designed to retaliate against Canada as part of a diplomatic dispute. In 2023, Canada publicly accused Indian agents of assassinating a Sikh activist in B.C. In response, India told its press that Sidhu was a terrorist on Canada’s payroll, according to the suit. While the Canadian government has cleared Sidhu, the lawsuit filed in Ottawa on Tuesday alleges it abandoned him to face the onslaught of state-sponsored disinformation on his own. As India’s news channels and social media loyalists spread falsehoods about Sidhu, he was subjected to harassment and threats, but the CBSA declined to help him, claiming it wasn’t a work-related matter, according to the suit.
The CBSA has not yet responded to a request for comment. Neither has India’s high commission in Ottawa, nor the Indian news outlets whose reports calling Sidhu a terrorist remain online. “We take the position that this was an orchestrated misinformation campaign against a citizen of Canada, and in this case, an innocent citizen of Canada,” his lawyer, Jeffrey Kroeker, said. “At the height of a diplomatic row between Canada and India, they needed a convenient patsy to blame something or put something on to deflect from genuine accusations of assassinations taking place in Canada.” “So what they did is, they found somebody who worked for the Canadian government amongst tens of thousands of civil servants, picked him out of the air because he has Sikh heritage, and threw him under the bus,” Kroeker said. “And then the Canadian government took over the bus and drove backwards over him.”
The ruse was part of India’s ongoing attempt to convince its citizens that Canada is a haven for pro-Khalistan terrorists who support independence for the South Asian nation’s Sikh-majority Punjab state. Sidhu was likely chosen for the ploy because he has a common Sikh name and was a senior, uniformed official in Canada’s national security establishment, according to his lawyers. The suit, filed in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, seeks a total of $9-million in damages from India and Canada, which it argues had a duty to protect Sidhu but let him down. Sidhu said he was born in B.C., had been a border officer for two decades and had never had anything to do with India’s affairs. They not only showed his photo to their millions of viewers and followers, but also published his home address, prompting one social media user to post a photo of the house along with the words, “Go and kill him.” But he said that when he reported the matter to his superiors, and relayed that police were concerned about his safety, the CBSA offered him no protection and instead subjected him to an internal investigation. The CBSA consulted the Canadian Security intelligence Service and concluded the Indian allegations were fake, but would neither offer him protection nor help him clear his name, he said.
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