- Monday, February 24, 2025
News about the latest plot surfaces two months after the Canadian government alleged Indian agents’ links to the assassination of Nijjar in Surrey in British Columbia in June.
By: Shubham Ghosh
AT a time when the strained diplomatic relation between India and Canada over the killing of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar is seemingly getting back on track slowly, an official source in the US’s Joe Biden administration has said that Washington thwarted a plot to eliminate another Sikh separatist leader on the American soil and warned India over concerns that the Narendra Modi government was involved.
The US was reportedly addressing the matter with utmost seriousness and also raised the issue with New Delhi “at the senior-most levels”, the White House said on Wednesday (22).
The Financial Times first reported the plot.
Adrienne Watson, spokesperson of the White House, said Indian officials were surprised and concerned after hearing about the development.
“We are treating this issue with utmost seriousness, and it has been raised by the US government with the Indian government, including at the senior-most levels,” Watson said.
“They stated that activity of this nature was not their policy … We understand the Indian government is further investigating this issue and will have more to say about it in the coming days. We have conveyed our expectation that anyone deemed responsible should be held accountable,” she said.
Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, who says he is a dual citizen of the US and Canada, was reportedly the target of the plot, the senior administration official said.
Pannun, who is the general counsel of Sikhs for Justice, a group that campaigns to set up an independent Sikh homeland called Khalistan carved out of India, recently threatened not to allow Air India operate its flights anywhere in the world and warned its passengers with life threats.
India’s anti-terror agency NIA (National Investigation Agency) filed a case against Pannun recently over his threats.
Pannun was listed as an “individual terrorist” by India in 2020.
News about the latest plot surfaces two months after the Canadian government alleged Indian agents’ links to the assassination of Nijjar in Surrey in British Columbia in June, something that New Delhi vehemently denied and temporarily suspended issuing visas to Canadians besides asking Ottawa to reduce its diplomatic presence in India.
The development could pose challenges to the Biden administration which has tried to taken a balanced stand in the India-Canada row and also working to develop closer ties with the South Asian nation as a counter to the growing power of China.
When Arindam Bagchi, spokesperson of India’s external affairs ministry, was asked about the Financial Times report, he said the US had shared “some inputs” that were being “examined by relevant departments”.
“India takes such inputs seriously since it impinges on our own national security interests as well,” he said, a Reuters report added.
The Financial Times said its sources did not reveal whether Washington’s protest to New Delhi resulted in the plot getting abandoned or whether it was foiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It said the protest was registered after Biden welcomed Indian prime minister Narendra Modi who went to the US on a state visit in June.
Pannun on Wednesday told Reuters that he would let Washington come up with a response “to the issue of threats to my life at the American soil from the Indian operatives.”
“Just like Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar’s assassination by the Indian agents on Canadian soil was a challenge to Canada’s sovereignty, the threat to (an) American citizen on American soil is a Challenge to America’s sovereign(ty),” he said.
(With Reuters inputs)
