EDITORIAL: When last May a Sikh dissident Parmajit Singh was brazenly murdered in Lahore by Indian agents Western government took no notice of it. But after a similar assassination in Canada outside a Gurdwara of a Sikh activist Hardeep Singh a month later a serious row has erupted between the two countries.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told parliament on Monday that credible information connects India to the assassination, asserting that “any involvement of a foreign government in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil is an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty”.
He had also raised the issue, he said, with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi at the recent G20 summit in Delhi. As per standard practice in such situations an Indian diplomat has been expelled and in a tit for tat action Delhi has asked a Canadian diplomat to leave within five days.
Tensions have been growing between the two countries for quite a while. Just recently Canada suspended negotiation for a free trade agreement with India. Although it cited no reason for opting out, India attributed that decision to “certain political developments”, evidently related to the killing of Canadian citizen. That also explains why Trudeau received a frosty reception upon arrival in Delhi for the G20 event. On the issue at hand, he has the support of his country’s allies.
In fact, according to media reports, the US was “very closely” involved in intelligence gathering that led the authorities in Ottawa to conclude that Indian agents were involved in the murder of Hardeep Singh. Voicing concern about the case, US National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said at a presser “we remain in regular contact with our Canadian partners, it is critical that Canada’s investigation proceed and the perpetrators be brought to justice.” Ottawa’s other allies have similarly come out in its support.
The episode, though, has created a quandary for India’s Western friends, obliged to stand with Canada but keen to forge close economic and geo-political ties with India. Letting it pass without holding the perpetrators to account will only encourage that country to do the same in other places such as London, San Francisco and Melbourne where Sikh separatists took out large demonstrations against the Indian government for Hardeep Singh’s murder.
The incident confirms, if any was needed, that Indian intelligence operatives were involved in the Lahore killing and have been committing or facilitating other acts of terrorism in this country.
As former foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari pointed out in his reaction to what transpired in Canada “not only have we caught spies who were involved in terrorism in our country, they have now been caught violating the sovereignty of a Nato state.” He also raised a pertinent question: “how long will the international community, especially the West, continue to ignore such incidents and actions of India?” The global community owes him an answer to this question.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023