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Sikh leaders targeted in assassination campaigns |
The Mounting Controversy over Targeting of Sikh Leaders
By Riaz Haq
CA
The United States and Canadian governments are alleging that Indian government agents plotted assassinations of Sikh dissidents on their soil. |
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The charges announced by Washington and Ottawa are backed by Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, the remaining three countries that make up the five-nation intelligence-sharing alliance known as the Five Eyes.
Revelations made by the US Justice Department and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) indicate that the authorization for Sikh assassinations came directly from the top Indian government officials. Lawrence Bishnoi is listed among the people tasked with carrying out the murders. These allegations are based on intelligence gathered from multiple communication intercepts among Indian government officials in New Delhi and Indian diplomats posted in Canada.
RCMP Commissioner Michael Duheme has warned of widespread violence, homicides, and a public security threat linked to agents of the Indian government. Duheme said the RCMP has charged “a significant number” of people with direct involvement in homicides, extortions, and other criminal acts of violence over the past few years and is aware of more than a dozen threats to members of the South Asian community and the pro-Khalistan movement, according to the Canadian news media .
Meanwhile, the United States Justice Department (US DOJ) has charged a former Indian intelligence agent Vikash Yadav for allegedly orchestrating a foiled plot to assassinate Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, an American citizen living in New York City. Last year, the DOJ first announced charges in the case, indicting an Indian national and alleged drug and weapons trafficker, Nikhil Gupta. That indictment also referred to an unnamed Indian government official whom prosecutors said directed the scheme.
New Delhi is responding very differently to almost identical allegations made by the US and Canadian governments. While the Canadians are treated with total disdain, the Americans are being taken very seriously. The behavior of the Modi officials toward Canada is just as hostile as it has been toward Pakistan which has also documented a campaign of assassination of Sikhs and Kashmiris orchestrated by Indian agents on its soil.
Reacting to the report of Canadian allegations against the Indian government, Pakistan Foreign Secretary Syrus Qazi said: “We are aware of the nature of our eastern neighbor, we know what they are capable of … so it is not a surprise for us. We caught [one of their] serving naval intelligence officers on our soil. He (Kulbhushan Jadhav) is in our custody and admitted that he came here to create instability and spread evil,” he added.
Last year, Pakistan foreign office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said her country remained a “target of a series of targeted killings and espionage by (Indian Intelligence Agency) RAW". “In December last year, Pakistan released a comprehensive dossier providing concrete and irrefutable evidence of India’s involvement in the Lahore attack of June 2021. The attack was planned and executed by Indian intelligence,” she said, adding that in 2016, a high-ranking Indian military officer Kulbhushan Jadhav confessed to his involvement in directing, financing, and executing terror and sabotage in Pakistan.
Speaking about the US decision to grant immunity to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman in 2022, State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said that it was “not the first time” that the US government has granted immunity to foreign leaders and listed four cases. “Some examples: President Aristide in Haiti in 1993; President Mugabe in Zimbabwe in 2001; Prime Minister Modi in India in 2014; and President Kabila in the DRC in 2018. This is a consistent practice that we have afforded to heads of state, heads of government, and foreign ministers,” he said.
(Riaz Haq is a Silicon Valley-based Pakistani-American analyst and writer. He blogs at www.riazhaq.com)
