Is Indian govt soliciting a 'gangster with hit men across the country' for targeted assassinations?
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00:00India and Canada stand by their stories after tit-for-tat expulsions of ambassadors and other high-level diplomats
00:06after last year's killing of a Sikh separatist outside Vancouver.
00:10It's all come to a head despite that meeting last week between Narendra Modi and Justin Trudeau
00:16on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit in Laos.
00:20Selena Sykes has more.
00:23A more than year-long feud at boiling point.
00:26Canada and India have both expelled each other's ambassadors along with other diplomats.
00:31In a tit-for-tat after Canadian police investigation accused Indian agents of involvement in criminal
00:37activity on Canadian soil.
00:40The team has learned a significant amount of information about the breadth and depth
00:44of criminal activity orchestrated by agents of the government of India and consequential
00:50threats to the safety and security of Canadians and individuals living in Canada.
00:55Relations between India and Canada have been tense since the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar
00:59in Canada in June last year.
01:02The Sikh separatist leader, who had lived in Canada since 1997 and had Canadian nationality,
01:08was shot dead by two masked gunmen outside a Sikh temple.
01:11At the time, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said there was credible evidence linking
01:16Indian agents to the murder, an accusation he reiterated on Monday.
01:22We will never tolerate the involvement of a foreign government threatening and killing
01:26Canadian citizens on Canadian soil, a deeply unacceptable violation of Canada's sovereignty
01:34and of international law.
01:37Delhi has repeatedly rejected the accusations.
01:40Its foreign ministry made its own in this statement released on Monday.
01:45The Trudeau government has consciously provided space to violent extremists and terrorists
01:50to harass, threaten and intimidate Indian diplomats and community leaders in Canada.
01:56India has accused Trudeau of pandering to Canada's large Sikh community for political
02:00gain.
02:01Some of them support the pro-Khalistan movement, which campaigns for a separate homeland for
02:06Sikhs in India.
02:08Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi considers them as a militant separatist group.
02:13Several extradition requests made by his government have been rejected by Canada, who say they
02:18will always defend freedom of expression.
02:21For more, let's cross to Bangalore.
02:23Amandeep Sandhu is columnist, the author of Punjab Journeys Through Fault Lines.
02:28Thank you for being with us here on France 24.
02:32Thank you so much for calling me.
02:34We're starting to find out more because at that press conference, we saw a clip of in
02:38the report, they were a bit light on some of the specifics.
02:43The Toronto Star reporting that Canadian police are investigating at least one other suspicious
02:48death, this one in Winnipeg, and that there was this sit down in Washington that was supposed
02:55to be confidential between Canadian investigators and India, and that it was leaked.
03:02And that's part of what led to Canada going so public with their accusations on Monday.
03:09Your thoughts on, have you been able to piece together why it's coming to a head?
03:17It is a shift in India's position, India's decades long position.
03:22It has always claimed to be a peaceful country.
03:24It has always encouraged friendliness with neighbors and others.
03:29But I think this whole episode, and we spoke about a year back when Mr. Trudeau made the
03:35allegations, I think it's a huge shift in India's position.
03:41We're seeing a huge shift.
03:46There's even talk, and it's been picked up by several media outlets, of a criminal gang
03:53headed by a certain Lawrence Bishnoi, who from jail had been working for intelligence
04:00services in India to organize hits.
04:04Yes, and that is strange because we never expected, if the allegations are true, we
04:09never expected the Indian government to take help of a gangster who has hit men all over
04:16the country.
04:17Even last week there has been a killing in Mumbai, which is also being ascribed to him,
04:22though he is in jail in Gujarat.
04:27But this seems to be coming out of all these reports that the Indian government is taking
04:32help of non-state agents to actually conduct operations which they can't even disclose
04:39to the host country.
04:42That is exactly the shift, that India is taking violent ways for which other countries are
04:47known.
04:48But India has never been known to be doing that.
04:51The Canadian authorities are quoted by the press there as saying there have been eight
04:56people charged with homicides, homicides plural.
05:01They don't specify exactly what cases they're talking about.
05:06How is it being reported where you are today?
05:09There is an element of bravado in Indian reporting.
05:12There is a certain kind of an appeal to the constituency which has elected this government
05:19that India has arrived on the world stage.
05:21India is militant now.
05:23India is aggressive.
05:24It goes behind its adversaries.
05:27Even the prime minister has been saying in his speeches that we will enter your homes
05:32and kill you.
05:33You know, ghar mein ghuske marenge.
05:36But obviously all this is very strange when you look at the long history of India as a
05:41nation which claims to adhere to Gandhi and Buddha.
05:46So this seems bizarre.
05:48Amandeep, I come back to the timeline of all of this because it's just last Friday that
05:56the Canadian prime minister and his Indian counterpart were speaking face to face on
06:00the sidelines of an ASEAN summit in Laos.
06:04That's last Friday.
06:06And then on Monday, the accusations are out in the open.
06:08Yeah.
06:09But even there, they didn't really speak.
06:11They brushed against each other, sort of, because Mr. Trudeau went and said that we
06:16spoke a bit.
06:17Mr. Modi did not even accept that.
06:18You know, I think the ties are frosty between them, as was seen in the G20 summit in India
06:24last year before Mr. Trudeau made the allegation.
06:29Of course, what's changed since what happened in 2023 near Vancouver and now as you've had
06:36a general election since, has Narendra Modi's government changed its tack, if you will,
06:45in that time?
06:46No, it hasn't.
06:48It obviously is going strong against who it claims are the enemies of the nation.
06:56But that's a huge different debate to engage in.
06:59But the aggression, the militant stance, even in his election speeches, he was in fact lampooning
07:06other communities.
07:07He was impugning minorities.
07:09That continues with the BJPs.
07:12That is its vote plank.
07:14But in spite of all that, they could not really increase their number of votes they got in
07:19the elections.
07:20They were at around 37 percent earlier and they were at 37 percent this time.
07:25That shows you that there is a tapering off of that kind of militaristic aggressive position.
07:32Most people who want to go with that have gone already.
07:35The others are not going that way.
07:38There was a time when, and we talked about it before, Amandeep, when there was radical
07:45violence on the part of Sikh separatists.
07:49When we go back to the history books, of course, we remember the assassination of Indira Gandhi
07:53in 1984 and the such.
07:57Right now, what's the state of play inside of India when it comes to all of that?
08:02But just a reminder that that violence also came out of the Indian government's attack
08:08on the holiest of holy shrines of the Sikh, the Golden Temple, Darbar Sahib.
08:13So there were, I mean, now in 40 years, there has been a huge amount of documentation on
08:18it.
08:19There are many layers to that episode and that period in Punjab's history.
08:25But as of now, Punjab is just reeling under misgovernance.
08:30The talk about Khalistan is not so much on people's minds.
08:33People are just trying to eke a living in Punjab.
08:36Amandeep Sandhu, so many thanks for joining us from Bangalore.
08:41Thank you so much.