2 Sikh men detained in Ottawa, released with apologies after bogus terrorism tip

After two Sikh-Canadian men were wrongfully detained following a bogus terrorism tip to Ottawa police that led to the closure of Parliament Hill, there are still few details from officers.

Members of United Front of Sikhs Canada go to Ottawa every year to remember victims of India’s 1984 anti-Sikh massacres, when around 2,800 Sikhs were killed over four days. On Saturday, Ottawa police say they received a tip about a possible terrorist threat and the area around Parliament Hill was then closed for several hours. Two Sikh men, who were part of the Sikh commemoration event, were also detained before being released.

One of the rally organizers and spokesperson for the two men wrongfully detained, Harpreet Hansra, says police assured them they would get to the bottom of things.

“The Ottawa police apologized to us, and profusely, repeatedly apologized, and said ‘you guys are the victims of a terrorism hoax.’ Exact words. They said, ‘you guys are the victims of a terrorism hoax’ there is no threat, and there was no threat,” Hansra says.

“It was very troubling for us,” Hansra says, “it was very concerning, that someone, an agency, how, what, when, where, who these people are, that provided this information to local security forces and to other security agencies that led to the closure of the parliament, led to our peaceful memorial remembrance event having to be shifted to a different location and led to the questioning of two of our members from our team.”

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Canada’s most prominent Sikh, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh, says this was unacceptable.

“Without any real basis, without any real evidence, two Sikh men were treated very poorly, were in their own words, made to feel embarrassed in front of their family, were made to feel demeaned based on a false call that clearly shows there’s a problem with the way threats are being taken. Real threats from extreme right-wing organizations are ignored, and false threats targeted towards racialized men are taken to the extreme,” Singh says.

One of the men detained says he was told by police that he was connected to a serious bomb threat, but both were later released with an apology. No charges have been laid yet, but the public safety minister emphasized calling in a fake terrorism tip is a crime.

“If you’re engaging in a hoax for whatever reason — that’s against the law. It’s very serious,” Marco Mendicino says, “and I think it’s an added dimension of concern if in the hoax you are building into stereotypes, if you are feeding into the kind of systemic biases particular against the community, and I know that the Sikh community is very concerned about this, I share those concerns.

Hansra says police did have to take the threat seriously because of the information they received, “but they concluded by apologizing and said ‘you guys are the victims of a terrorism hoax and this investigation to get to the bottom of where this information came from will commence, and will be ongoing.'”