Court documents connect father who was fatally shot alongside son in Edmonton to ‘Project Gaslight’

An Edmonton father who was shot and killed alongside his 11-year-old son in southeast Edmonton in 2023 has now being linked to an arson extortion campaign targeting South Asian homebuilders in Edmonton.

Court documents filed last month and recently obtained by CityNews name Harpreet Uppal as a high-ranking associate of a group involved in the early days of an extortion campaign the involved in setting fires to newly built homes, causing over $4 million in damages.

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Edmonton Police Service dubbed these extortions as ‘Project Gaslight’ and allege Maninder Singh Dhaliwal as the leader of the criminal network The Brothers Keeperresponsible for this string of arsons. Dhaliwal was arrested on unrelated charges in the United Arab Emirates in late 2024. EPS has applied to extradite him to Alberta.

Edmonton police arrested several members of the group in July 2024, among them, Divnoor Singh Asht, a self-proclaimed middle managers who pleaded guilty to three out of seven charges on May 23.

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As per the agreed statement of facts, Asht was responsible for assembling and instructing lower members of the group to carry out extortions and arsons based on directions and instructions from Uppal and Dhaliwal.

Court documents site an example of Asht reporting the completion of an arson in a text message sent to Uppal that said “done chacha”, as well as a photo of the property the morning after the first arson on November 6, 2023. The photo showed first responder vehicles on scene and smoke demonstrating proof of arson.

Court records say that, before Uppal was killed, he was involved in the early days of the arson extortion scheme, while Dhaliwal orchestrated the extortions from outside of Canada.

According to the agreed statement of facts in Asht’s case, the Project Gaslight investigation involved a wiretap, hundreds of hours of recorded Edmonton Remand Centre calls and the seizure of dozens of digital devices.

The group began targeting homebuilders in October 2023. The court document says one man received a call over WhatsApp demanding $500,000, telling him if he failed to do so, his family would be killed. The other builder also got calls linked to the same WhatsApp account, but he did not answer.

What followed was a string of deliberately set fires targeting properties of one builder that destroyed two homes, causing $950,000 in damages each. Court documents state that accelerant was used to commit arsons in both cases.

The other builder, whose several properties were destroyed in Beaumont, fled Canada after he started getting calls from a Dubai number demanding $1 million, and if he failed to pay, the arsons would continue and so would a drive-by shooting at his residence. The person fled Canada in December 2023 for several months returning in spring 2024 and upped their security.

A total of $4 million in damages were caused due to the arsons targeting at least three builders in October and November of 2023, according to court records.

Records also show that two more builders were targeted in late 2023 and early 2024, however, Asht has not admitted to being involved in any of the offences.

The agreed statement of facts also states that the by late December 2023, there seem to be a clear division between the group members.

Asht was arrested on July 25, 2024, and was sentenced to 4.5 years in prison for his role in the extortions.