A few days after Kapil Sharma opened his first café in Canada, bullets shattered its front window, and a Khalistani terrorist is now claiming credit.

The shooting, which took place just days after the soft launch of Kap’s Cafe in British Columbia, left no one injured but sent shockwaves through the diaspora community.

The man behind the attack is believed to be Harjeet Singh Laddi, a wanted Khalistani extremist with ties to the banned terror group Babbar Khalsa International.

Surveillance footage of the incident shows a man seated inside a vehicle riddling the café’s front window with bullets in rapid succession.

The attack came just days after the café’s soft launch, marking Sharma’s debut in the restaurant business, a venture also involving his wife, Ginni Chatrath.

The case has since taken a serious turn with Harjeet Singh Laddi, a fugitive operative of the banned terror group Babbar Khalsa International (BKI), publicly claiming responsibility.

According to sources, Laddi was allegedly offended by a past remark made by Sharma, a potential trigger behind the shooting. Canadian police have launched an investigation, with forensic teams deployed to the scene.

Laddi, who currently resides in Germany, has long been on the radar of Indian security agencies.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has named him in its most-wanted list and has announced a Rs 10 lakh reward for credible leads on his whereabouts.

He is also accused of masterminding the April 2024 killing of VHP leader Vikas Prabhakar, alias Vikas Bagga, in Punjab’s Rupnagar district, a murder allegedly executed on the instructions of Wadhwa Singh Babbar, the Pakistan-based chief of Babbar Khalsa.

Wednesday’s attack is yet another flashpoint in the increasingly tense narrative around Khalistani extremism in Canada. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), in a report last month, warned of ongoing plots by Khalistani outfits using Canada as a base for “promotion, fundraising or planning of violence primarily in India”.

India has repeatedly raised concerns about the permissiveness towards extremist elements on Canadian soil.

“Our biggest problem right now is in Canada… extremism and advocates of violence have been given a certain legitimacy in the name of free speech,” India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar had said last year, referencing the broader diplomatic unease between the two nations.

Ties between India and Canada had hit rock bottom in 2023 following then Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s allegation of Indian involvement in the assassination of Khalistani figure Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

Relations have seen a slight thaw since Mark Carney took over as Prime Minister, but episodes like the Kap’s Café attack risk further straining this fragile détente.

Babbar Khalsa International was responsible for the 1985 Air India bombing and the assassination of Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh.