Union External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar on Wednesday expressed India's willingness to take action regarding the killing of Khalistani leader Hardeep Nijjar, if Canada provided with 'specific information'.
Speaking at the ‘Discussion at Council on Foreign Relations’ in New York, Jaishankar said: “We told the Canadians that this is not the government of India's policy. Secondly, we said if you have something specific and if you have something relevant, let us know. We are open to looking at it... The picture is not complete without the context in a way."
It is to be noted that a diplomatic row was triggered between India and Canada after Canadian PM Justin Trudeau alleged a "potential" involvement of Indian agents in the killing of Khalistani extremist Nijjar, 45, on June 18 in British Columbia. India had designated Nijjar as a terrorist in 2020. Canada has not provided public evidence to support its claim about Nijjar's killing yet.
He further said that there has been a lot of “organised crime” in Canada in the last few years, and the Indian government has given a lot of information to Canada regarding this.
"In the last few years, Canada actually has seen a lot of organised crime, relating to the secessionist forces, organised crime, violence and extremism. They're all very, very deeply mixed up. So in fact, we have been talking about specifics and information. We have given them a lot of information about organized crime and leadership, which operates out of Canada. There are a large number of extradition requests. There are terrorist leaders, who have been identified,” Jaishankar said.
When asked about reports about intelligence on the killing was shared amongst the Five Eyes - the intelligence-sharing alliance - and that the FBI is telling Sikh leaders in the US that there are credible threats to them, Jaishankar said: “I'm not part of The Five Eyes, I'm certainly not part of the FBI. So I think you're asking the wrong person.”
‘Five Eyes’ network is an intelligence alliance consisting of the US, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Last week, top US diplomat in Canada, David Cohen, said the “shared intelligence among ‘Five Eyes’ partners” led Trudeau to make allegations against India in the Nijjar killing.
Following Cohen's comments, The New York Times cited sources to report that The United States – one of the ‘Five Eyes’ nations – provided Canada with intelligence after Nijjar was gunned down in June near Vancouver.
Jaishankar on Wednesday further raised concern over these incidents of threats to Indian diplomats and attacks on Indian consulates, stating that these are “very permissive” because of political reasons.
“Our concern is that it's really been very permissive, because of political reasons. So we have a situation where our diplomats are threatened, our consulates have been attacked. A lot of this is often justified, as saying that's how democracies work. If somebody gives me something specific, it doesn't have to be restricted to Canada. But if there's any incident which is an issue and somebody gives me something specific, as a government, I would look at it,” Jaishankar further said.
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