A tough week for Indian diplomacy began with an explosive press conference in Canada on Monday. Top Canadian police officials have accused Indian diplomats of engaging in “criminal” activities in Canada, ranging from murder and targeted assassinations to extortion, intimidation and extortion against members of Canada’s Sikh community.
They have only implicated Indian diplomats, including the High Commissioner himself, in the high-profile killing of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was shot dead outside a gurdwara outside Vancouver last June. He also claimed to be involved in other murders. on Canadian soil. The diplomats reportedly even collaborated with gangs led by India’s most notorious mob bosses to carry out their dirty work.
Two days later, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau doubled down on his claims. Testifying ahead of the public inquiry, he said Canada has clear intelligence linking Indian diplomats to “drive-through shootings, home invasions, violent extortion and even murders in and across Canada.” Ta. Prime Minister Trudeau added that India had made a “horrible mistake” in violating Canada’s sovereignty.
This is a significant escalation in the diplomatic spat that has roiled relations between India and Canada, starting last year when Prime Minister Trudeau stood in parliament and said there were “credible allegations” linking the Indian government to Nijjar’s murder. However, India rejected this accusation. It’s absurd.”
Since then, allegations of a cross-border campaign of violence and harassment by India have surfaced in Canada as well as the United States, United Kingdom and Pakistan, with prominent Sikh activists claiming to have received death threats. are.
Western officials and the Sikh community have revealed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government’s widespread – and often clumsily executed – cross-border targeting of the Sikh diaspora They claim that it is a repressive policy. Canadian officials have evidence that the alleged threats and harassing orders came from the highest echelons of India’s government, all the way to the powerful Home Minister Amit Shah, who is considered Prime Minister Modi’s right-hand man. I am told that there is.
Canada’s latest allegations were met with a flurry of angry denials, with India repeatedly rejecting all allegations and stressing that such killings are not government policy. New Delhi called the claims “ridiculous impositions” and “ridiculous” statements and accused Trudeau of political vendetta. They also accused Canada of providing safe haven to Sikh terrorists.
But by Friday morning, India woke up to fresh suspicions, this time from the US. An “Indian government official” named Vikash Yadav was charged in New York last year with a plot to kill Gurpatwant Singh Panun, a prominent Sikh activist and American national. At the time of the planned killing, Yadav was working as an intelligence officer for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and had been with the Indian government for many years.
The new indictment adds further details to the alleged assassination plot against Mr. Pannun, which was first disclosed by U.S. Justice Department prosecutors late last year.
In a story that reads like a B-movie script, U.S. investigators believe that an Indian operative in New Delhi (previously known only as CC1, now revealed to be Yadav) , claimed to have hired an Indian intermediary in New York to help organize the plot to kill Panun. . Panun, a lawyer and American national, is a known Sikh separatist member of the fire brigade and has been designated a terrorist by the Indian government.
However, the plan is said to have failed when the assassin Yadav and his intermediaries hired to kill Panun clumsily turned out to be American undercover officers. The alleged middleman, named Nikhil Gupta, fled to the Czech Republic, where he was arrested and later deported to the United States, where he maintains his innocence. On Friday, the FBI released a wanted notice for Yadav, and the United States believes it will seek his extradition from India, where he is still considered a “fugitive.”
Although India has tried to portray the Indian and Canadian cases as unrelated, U.S. investigators say they are closely related. As the plot to kill Pannun was being planned, it is alleged that Gupta mentioned a “big target” in Canada days before Nijjar was shot. Hours after Nijjar’s death, Yadav allegedly sent a video clip of Nijjar’s body to an intermediary.
The Justice Department believes Panun’s killing is a “serious example” of a growing trend of transnational repression, a term used to describe violent and illegal actions by foreign governments beyond their own territory. It was revealed that there was. Without directly addressing the obvious geopolitical effects at play, he stressed that those responsible “regardless of their position or proximity to power” will be held accountable.
India is now scrambling to reject allegations that it has become a rogue international actor illegally infringing on the sovereign territory of not one but two Western allies. Not so long ago, such killings were not considered part of India’s intelligence strategy. But since he came to power a decade ago, Mr. Modi’s strong nationalist agenda, aimed at elevating India to superpower status, has come to define his policies at home and abroad.
In an earlier Guardian investigation that implicated India in up to 20 killings on Pakistan’s borders since 2020, intelligence officials revealed how the Modi government has He explained how he became bolder. They said Israel’s notorious spy agency Mossad and the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist and dissident who was murdered at the Saudi embassy in 2018, were directly cited as examples to follow.
“What Saudi Arabia did was very effective,” an intelligence official told the Guardian earlier this year. “Not only do you eliminate your enemies, but you send a chilling message, a warning, to those who oppose you. Every intelligence agency has done this. If we don’t use force against our enemies, our country will… Officially, the Indian government has repeatedly denied that this is their policy.
The allegations have yet to be proven in court in both Canada and the United States, with Canada only naming Indian government officials as “persons of interest” in the case and not yet filing charges.
However, if the allegations are confirmed, it would confirm that the role of India’s foreign intelligence agencies has been fundamentally reconsidered under the Modi government. This comes as Prime Minister Modi’s long-standing crackdown on dissent, which targeted everyone from opposition politicians to activists and even NGOs at home, is now far more prevalent across borders, especially among the diaspora. This indicates that it is targeting Sikhs associated with the separatist Khalistan movement.
There is a sharp contrast in India’s response to both incidents, which observers say reflects different geopolitical aims. In Canada’s case, analysts say relations have deteriorated so much that India has little to lose if it refuses to cooperate with the investigation, despite India’s bullish claims that there is no evidence. are.
But India similarly cannot afford to antagonize Washington. Following Mr. Panun’s indictment, they launched a high-level investigation into the U.S. allegations and traveled to Washington this week. India’s Ministry of External Affairs also confirmed that Yadav is no longer a civil servant.
So far, the White House has tried to tread a similarly cautious diplomatic path to avoid alienating India, a key strategic and economic ally. However, the Justice Department made clear in its indictment that it would not allow geopolitics to interfere with the investigation.
“We urge governments around the world who may be considering these criminal acts, and the communities they target, to ensure that the Department of Justice thwarts these plots,” said Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen. I have no doubt that we are committed to exposing this.” ”
