The Crown has dropped charges against a man related to a video filmed in the NWT that featured firearms.
In October 2025, Yellowknife RCMP charged Ekpreet Brar, 27, with possessing a prohibited firearm at an unauthorized place and possessing a prohibited firearm with ammunition without a licence at that place.
According to court documents, Brar was authorized to possess the firearm at his home. He was accused of having the firearm at a location off Highway 3 about 30 minutes outside Yellowknife on May 24, 2025.
The Public Prosecution Service of Canada withdrew both charges against Brar earlier this month.
NWT RCMP told Cabin Radio the charges were withdrawn after a “resolution was achieved through completion of alternative measures” and Brar “remained cooperative throughout the entire process.”
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RCMP did not respond to a request for further information.
The prosecution service said in a statement that policies allow Crown prosecutors to “consider restorative approaches” in cases where there is a reasonable prospect of conviction and it is in the public interest to do so. PPSC said charges in this case were withdrawn after Brar successfully completed the requirements of “an alternative measures program.”
Brar’s lawyer did not return Cabin Radio’s request for comment by the time of publication.
In announcing the charges against Brar last year, RCMP said they had begun investigating after officers were made aware of an Instagram account with videos filmed in and near Yellowknife that showed people displaying and discharging firearms.
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RCMP alleged one video, posted in May 2025, depicted people discharging long guns including a GSG-16 rifle, which officers described as a prohibited assault-style firearm. Police said analysis of the firearm confirmed it was functional and prohibited.
The videos, which have since been taken down, sparked backlash online. Some people viewed the footage as glamourizing guns and suspected gang culture, amid broader concerns about gun and gang violence in the NWT connected to the illicit drug trade.
The filmmaker behind the videos, which featured Punjabi rap songs, told Cabin Radio the people involved had wanted to make music videos for Yellowknife’s Indian community and had not intended to cause harm or glorify weapons.
RCMP said at the time the individuals involved in producing the videos had “cooperated fully” with their investigation.
On social media, responses to the videos featured anti-immigrant racism, particularly against people from India, Pakistan and South Asia more broadly.
The filmmaker behind the videos had described the people involved in the videos as being South Asian. Some members of Yellowknife’s South Asian community subsequently told Cabin Radio they wished to distance themselves from the filmmaker’s description and from the videos as a whole.
The Association of South Asians in Yellowknife, in a statement last year, condemned the videos’ “troubling lack of understanding of northern, Indigenous and Dene values,” saying they reinforced stereotypes. The organization said it opposed “any attempt to target or discriminate against South Asians as a whole.”
