Yahoo News Top India Minister Authorized Murder Plots in Canada, Official Alleges
(Bloomberg) -- Indian Home Affairs Minister Amit Shah authorized a wave of violence across Canada that included extortion and homicides, said a senior Canadian government official.
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David Morrison, Canada’s deputy foreign minister, told a parliamentary committee on Tuesday that he had confirmed the identity of Shah in a newspaper report earlier this month.
The Washington Post reported that Canadian security agencies had collected evidence that “a senior official in India” had “authorized the intelligence-gathering missions and attacks on Sikh separatists” in Canada. The story went on to say that a Canadian source identified Shah as being the Indian official in question.
“The journalist called me and asked me if it was that person,” Morrison said. “I confirmed it was that person.”
India’s Ministry of External Affairs on Wednesday didn’t immediately respond to the allegations against Shah. It’s previously dismissed Canada’s accusations that India’s government was involved in the alleged attacks against Sikh activists, calling them “baseless.” The Ministry of Home Affairs declined to comment on Wednesday and referred queries to the Ministry of External Affairs.
Morrison was appearing at the committee alongside other Canadian police and government officials about the escalation of a diplomatic dispute two weeks ago. Canada ejected India’s high commissioner and five other diplomats from the country, and India then responded with a similar action.
A year earlier, India expelled 41 Canadian diplomats after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said there were “credible” allegations that Narendra Modi’s government helped orchestrate the killing of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil. But instead of the matter ending there, Canadian officials allege India continued a violent campaign against activists in Canada.
The US has also charged an Indian national and an Indian government employee with attempting to kill a Sikh activist on American soil. Modi’s government launched an internal probe of the allegations that concluded rogue agents were behind the plot, Bloomberg News has reported.
Shah is a close ally of Modi for more than three decades and is considered a possible successor to the prime minister. He has a controversial past, though, and previously faced extortion and murder charges and was briefly jailed in 2010 while an official in Gujarat state. He denied the allegations at the time, and a court eventually threw out the case in 2014 after Modi came to power.
Evidence Presented
Nathalie Drouin, Trudeau’s national security adviser, told the parliamentary committee Tuesday that she had personally attended a meeting where evidence was presented connecting Indian agents and diplomats to the crime wave in Canada.
Drouin flew to Singapore for an Oct. 12 meeting with her Indian counterpart, during which both sides agreed to keep the matter quiet while they worked on addressing it, she said.
“Instead, the government of India chose to not respect our agreement and go public the next day, Sunday, Oct. 13, and use again their false narrative that Canada has not shown any evidence,” Drouin said during testimony to a Canadian parliamentary committee.
In response, Canadian police held an extraordinary news conference the following day to outline their evidence, and the government announced it was ejecting six Indian diplomats — including High Commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma.
Drouin said Canadian officials also decided at that point to brief international media on the evidence Canada held, selecting the Washington Post.
In Singapore, Canadian officials provided evidence that Indian government agents in Canada had been collecting information on certain Canadians, primarily Sikh activists, and then passing that information to an organized crime outfit to carry out extortion, assassination plots and killings, she said.
“Given how alarming the evidence was, we knew we had to act and act quickly,” Drouin testified. “We needed the agents of the government of India to stop their illegal activities in Canada, and sought a collaborative approach with Indian officials.”
Drouin said Canadian officials gave multiple options to India on how to proceed, including Canada’s preferred option of India publicly opening an investigation into the matter, similar to the approach India has taken with the US assassination case.
But she said India quickly made it clear they weren’t interested in that course of action.
“By going public, the government of India clearly signaled that they were not going to be accountable or take the necessary actions we needed to ensure public safety,” Drouin said.
Drouin ended her testimony by stressing that Canada did not act lightly, and does not want to ruin its relationship with India especially in the broader context of having to counteract China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific region.
“Canada remains open to cooperation with India, but we need to have a meaningful engagement from India on our grounded and serious concerns,” she said.
--With assistance from Sudhi Ranjan Sen and Swati Gupta.
(Updates with response from India government ministry in fifth paragraph. An earlier version of the story corrected the year of Shah’s previous charges.)
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