Young men armed with swords, baseball bats and pieces of wood stand guard outside a Sikh gurdwara near Toronto’s Pearson Airport, their eyes scanning the perimeter for signs of trouble in the darkness.

Prayers broadcast from inside the temple mix with Punjabi music blaring from a van parked nearby. The atmosphere has been tense since sunset.

“We have to be ready,” said Daljit Singh Sekhon, president of the Sri Guru Singh Sabha Malton gurdwara in Mississauga, Ont., as he glanced at a row of security cameras Tuesday.

Disturbing scenes like this played out this week at temples in Brampton and nearby Mississauga as the the gap grows between Canada and India has spread to Canadian suburbs. Hindus and Sikhs, divided during a decades-long struggle to create a sovereign nation in a region of northwest India, have clashed in the streets, and some have threatened to unleash a wave of sectarian violence rarely seen in this country.

Conflicts arise just a few weeks later RCMP announce they have evidence of Indian officials’ involvement in homicides, extortion and other violent crimes on Canadian soil, leading Canada to expel six Indian diplomats and India to expel six Canadian diplomats in retaliation. The government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has repeatedly accused Representatives of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi engage in secret campaigns to suppressing and killing Sikh activists living in Canada, including shooting dead Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, British Columbia, last year.

Everything shook up this week in several Canadian communities, where uncontrolled protests by Hindu and Sikh nationalists led to condemnation of politicians and forced municipal leaders to consider new regulations that would ban demonstrations in places of worship. In Surrey, three men were also arrested after violence broke out when hundreds of protesters turned up at a Hindu temple.

Sikhs and Hindus live side by side Bramptonan Ontario city of approximately 750,000 inhabitants, a quarter of the population is Sikh and one in five residents is Hindu. Although tensions over the goal of creating a Sikh territory in India called Khalistan have long existed, this type of violence between the two groups in Canada is rare.

And it has geopolitical overtones that highlight the increasingly strained relationship between Canada and India.

“Hindus have had enough,” said Arvind Mishra, a 35-year-old IT consultant from Brampton who came to Canada from India about four years ago. “They are frustrated. They are agitated and very, very angry. We feel marginalized.

Mr Mishra, who said he was inside the Hindu Sabha temple in Brampton with his wife and nine-month-old daughter last Sunday when fighting began outside with sticks and fists, said said Sikh protesters had crossed a line by demonstrating at a religious site. He criticizes Ottawa for leaving pro-Khalistan rhetoric, which many Hindus view as support for terrorism, unchecked. With anger over anti-Indian sentiment reigning within the Khalistan movement for years, it is not surprising that Hindus are reacting, he said.

Sikhs say their fight is not against Hindus, but against Indian government interference in Canada. Khalistan protesters claimed Sunday’s event at the Hindu temple – where Indian consular staff were helping Indian immigrants apply for government pensions – was part of surveillance efforts to keep tabs on pro-Khalistan Sikhs. About 80 percent of the 1,000 people who were inside the building at the time were Sikh, according to the temple’s president, Madhusudan Lama.

“This is not a religious battle. This is not a battle between Sikhs and Hindus,” said Inderjeet Singh Gosal, one of the organizers of Sunday’s protest outside the Hindu Sabha temple. “This was not an attempt to attack a place of worship. The reason we were there to protest was strictly against Indian government officials. »

Later that night, a crowd of around 300 pro-India counter-protesters – some masked and armed with bats – converged on the nearby Malton gurdwara, known for its close links to the pro-Khalistan movement. The following night, riot police attempted to contain a larger crowd of protesters, some draped in Indian flags, who took to the street outside the Hindu Sabha temple and were seen kicking vehicles. Three men were arrested.

Relations between Canada and India have been strained since the murder of Mr. Nijjara leader of the pro-Khalistan movement, in June 2023. Three months later, Mr. Trudeau appeared in Parliament and alleged that Indian government agents were involved in the shooting.

Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre criticized Mr. Trudeau for sowing the divisions that led to the violent clashes in Brampton. Mr Modi criticized what he called “cowardly attempts to intimidate our diplomats” amid a deepening diplomatic row. Liberal MP Chandra Arya, who represents an Ottawa riding, said the protests show how emboldened the Sikh sovereignty movement has become.

Many Hindus blame Sikh extremists, responsible for the Air India bombing that killed 329 people in 1985, of fueling unrest in India. Sikh activists, meanwhile, have never forgotten the violent repression against Sikhs in India in the 1980s and recently angered New Delhi by organizing a referendum among Indian immigrants on the independence of Khalistan.

This week, that tension exploded in Brampton.

“Any time there is anything that involves a threat or intimidation regarding a place of worship, it strikes a nerve,” said Dan Stanton, who served as an intelligence officer with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service for 32 years.

Canada must be wary of growing radicalization on both sides of the Khalistan issue, he said. Indian consular officials have become a “lightning rod from the Sikh community’s perspective,” he added, which is part of the reason the Peel Regional Police chief asked the Indian consulate to consider organize retreat events at non-religious sites.

“Of course, Indian representation in Canada has allegedly been involved in murders, extraditions, arson, etc. So it’s a real powder keg,” Mr. Stanton said. “And then when you have an incident outside of a religious institution… it’s almost like striking a match.”

Religious leaders on both sides have condemned the violence and say emotions are being inflamed by a handful of people. Among them, they say, is Ron Benarjee, a self-described “hardline Hindu nationalist” known for his inflammatory statements against Muslims. He appeared in a video recorded Sunday evening outside the Hindu temple, calling on protesters to storm Sikh temples.

Mr. Benarjee, 57, was reported by Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown for trying to incite violence and was charged with promoting hate speech by Peel Regional Police. He could not be reached for comment.

Arrest warrants have also been issued for two other men, a 24-year-old from Kitchener and a 22-year-old, for their roles in the violence.

Meanwhile, Rajinder Parsad, a Hindu priest who was filmed telling the crowd “if anyone opposes us, we will kill him”, was suspended from the Hindu Sabha temple, according to Mr Lama. An off-duty Peel Regional Police officer who participated in the pro-Khalistan protest was also suspended.

Back at the Malton Gurdwara, one of the men standing guard said he never thought he would feel the need to protect his place of worship in Canada.

“I thought we had put all that behind us,” said Prince Kler, a dispatcher at a trucking company. “But apparently not.”