EDITORIAL: Indian government’s campaign of extra-territorial killings has finally come to a head.
On Monday, Canada expelled six Indian diplomats, including its high commissioner, for their involvement in the assassination last year of a Sikh dissident, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, in Vancouver.
In a tit-for-tat India ordered Ottawa’s acting high commissioner, his deputy, and four first secretaries to leave the country by or before October 19.
New Delhi, of course, has acted innocent ascribing the Canadian move to purported political agenda of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government that, it said, (alluding to that country’s sizeable Sikh population) is centered on vote bank politics, also claiming that no evidence was shared with it.
Had the Modi government been guiltless it should have asked to see the evidence, but no such request was made.**
Speaking at a presser later in the day, Trudeau disclosed that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) had uncovered “clear and compelling evidence” that Indian agents had engaged in activities that threaten public safety.
The evidence brought to light by the RCMP cannot be ignored, he asserted, adding, “It leads to one conclusion: it is necessary to disrupt the criminal activities that continue to pose a threat to public safety in Canada”.
It may be recalled that Ottawa had initiated the probe into Nijjar’s murder premised on information provided by American intelligence agencies.
Soon afterwards, the US also accused Indian agents of involvement in the attempted assassination of a Sikh separatist leader, Gurpatwant Singh Pannu, living in New York.
Subsequently, last November US Department of Justice announced charges against an Indian national, Nikhil Gupta, over the failed attempt. What it has been doing in Pakistan seems to have emboldened the Modi government to widen the scope of its strategy of eliminating individuals opposed to Indian rule.
Between 2020 and 2023, agents of its spy agency, RAW, orchestrated assassinations of as many as 20 Sikh and Kashmiri dissidents in this country. An investigative report published a while ago by the highly respected British newspaper, The Guardian, based on interviews with senior officials from Pakistani and Indian intelligence agencies, revealed that Indian agents paid millions of rupees to local criminals or poor Pakistanis to carry out assassinations. They also recruited jihadists for the purpose, making them believe they were killing “infidels.”
No one in the countries now facing somewhat a similar situation bothered to reprimand PM Modi whose office directly controls RAW. Nonetheless, targeted killings in Pakistan have stopped since Canada and the US went public with their charges against India.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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