Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara (Surrey)

The Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara is at 7050 120th Street in Surrey, British Columbia. The Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara Society says it has served the Surrey-Delta sangat since 1973. It describes its early work as limited initiatives in kirtan teaching, Gurmat camps and Punjabi language classes, and it now runs an independent Sikh-values school, the G.N. Sikh Pre and Elementary School. Wikipedia says Hardeep Singh Nijjar was its president from 2019.

Key moments

• 18 June 2023: Nijjar, 45, is shot dead in his vehicle in the gurdwara's parking lot just before 8:30 in the evening, when many worshippers were present after evening prayers. RCMP Assistant Commissioner Brian Edwards called it a brazen act of violence outside a place of worship (Global News).
• 10 September 2023: Sikhs for Justice holds an unofficial, non-binding Khalistan referendum vote at the gurdwara, after a Surrey school district cancelled its rental of a school. Global News reports tens of thousands of voters; the organisers estimated more than 100,000.
• 18 September 2023: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tells the House of Commons that Canadian agencies are pursuing credible allegations of a possible link between agents of the Indian government and the killing. India's foreign ministry rejected the claim on 19 September as "absurd and motivated". Al Jazeera reported that Canada had not yet given evidence, and that the US, UK, Australia and New Zealand urged a full investigation without echoing the allegation.
• 29 October 2023: the second round of the vote is held at the gurdwara. Radio Punjab's news director said 65,700 voted that day, and officials put the total across the two rounds at more than 200,000.
• 3 May 2024: police announce the arrest of three men in Edmonton, charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. A fourth man is charged later. All four are presumed innocent. As of 19 February 2026 the case was in its pretrial stage under a publication ban.

Where it stands today: It remains an active gurdwara and school on 120th Street. The gurdwara has been the setting for both the killing and the referendum votes, and the case against the accused has not reached trial.