Amarinder Won't Meet 'Pro-Khalistan' Canadian Defence Minister

Chandigarh: Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh has refused to meet Canadian Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan during his visit later this month to India.

Speaking on a TV show Captain Amarinder Singh said Harjit Sajjan is a known Khalistani sympathiser and Captain Amarinder Singh does not want to meet up with such sympathisers who are a part of the Justin Trudeau cabinet.

In the run-up to the Punjab assembly polls, Captain Amarinder Singh had been denied permission to address rallies in Canada and he attributed the refusal to the “Khalistani sympathisers” in the Canadian government.

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The Punjab Chief Minister had earlier too said there are Khalistani sympathisers among Canadian ministers. Harjit Sajjan is a high-profile Indo-Canadian minister in the Trudeau government and is expected to make his first visit to India later this month following his appointment as Defence Minister.

The first Sikh Defence Minister of Canada was born in 1970 in Hoshiarpur in Punjab and was also the first Sikh to command an army Regiment in Canada. The Khalistani movement which was at its peak in the early eighties was a movement by a section of Sikhs to demand a separate Homeland for the Sikhs.