WASHINTONG -UNS: The US has said it supports Canada’s efforts to probe the killing of a Sikh separatist leader on its soil — in which Ottawa alleges India has been involved — and urges New Delhi to cooperate in the investigation.
“We believe a fully transparent comprehensive investigation is the right approach so that we can all know exactly what happened, and of course, we encourage India to cooperate with that,” John Kirby, spokesman for the White House National Security Council (NSC), said while speaking to CNN.
Canada’s allegation, centring on the killing of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in June in Surrey, was made on Monday, with Ottawa expelling India’s top intelligence agent over the matter.
Nijjar supported a Sikh homeland in the form of an independent Khalistani state and was designated by India as a “terrorist” in July 2020. He had denied those charges, according to the World Sikh Organisation of Canada, a nonprofit organisation that says it defends the interests of Canadian Sikhs.
Canada said it was “actively pursuing credible allegations” linking Indian government agents to the murder of the Sikh separatist leader.
Meanwhile, PM Justin Trudeau said in an emergency statement to the House of Commons that any involvement of a foreign government in the killing of a Canadian citizen was “an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty”.
He has also demanded that India treat with “utmost seriousness” the bombshell revelation of its probe into the murder.
In response, India expelled on Tuesday a Canadian diplomat with five days’ notice to leave the country.
New Delhi also dismissed the Canadian accusation as “absurd and motivated” and urged it instead to take legal action against anti-Indian elements operating from its soil.
While speaking to CNN, Kirby termed Canada’s allegation “very serious” and said US President Joe Biden was mindful of the accusation.
Asked whether the US knew what intelligence Canada based its allegation on, Kirby replied: “I am going to be careful about what I say here to preserve the sanctity of this investigation and leave it for Canada to talk about the underpinning information here and what more they are trying to learn.
“We want to respect that process and it’s their investigation.”
To a question about possible repercussions if it was proved that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi ordered the killing, he said: “Let’s not get ahead of where we are. There’s an active investigation and we think it needs to be fully transparent and comprehensive.
“We know that Canada will work to that end. Again, we urge India to cooperate with that investigation … Once we have all the facts and we have conclusions that we can draw from that, then you can start to look at recommendations or behaviours you might want to pursue.”
Separately, another NSC spokesperson, Adrienne Watson, denied reports that the US had “rebuffed” Canada over the matter.
She shared a post on X by Washington Post, which said: “President Biden has aggressively wooed India’s Modi as a counterweight to China. That effort is now complicated by Canada’s explosive allegation that Indian officials may have been behind the slaying of a Sikh separatist leader in British Columbia.”
Reacting to it, Watson said: “Reports that we rebuffed Canada in any way on this are flatly false. We are coordinating and consulting with Canada closely on this issue. This is a serious matter and we support Canada’s ongoing law enforcement efforts. We are also engaging the Indian government.”
India’s ‘network of extra-territorial killings’
Earlier today, Foreign Office (FO) spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said the Canadian accusation showed New Delhi’s “network of extra-territorial killings” had gone global, state broadcaster Radio Pakistan reported.
The matter was brought up during a press briefing in Islamabad where the FO spokesperson highlighted that the Indian intelligence agency, Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), had been “actively involved in abductions and assassinations in South Asia” the Radio Pakistan report said.
It quoted Baloch as saying that Pakistan had remained a “target of a series of targeted killings and espionage by 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.
She termed “India’s assassination of a Canadian national on Canadian soil a clear violation of international law and the UN principle of state sovereignty”, according to the report.
