Sanjay Kumar Verma went to Canada as the Indian High Commissioner with a mission to demand Ottawa get tough on Sikh-Canadian activists who wanted to see a separate state of Khalistan carved out of Punjab, says The Globe and Mail, a Canadian newspaper.
His picture and brief resume still appear on the High Commission website, though he and five other Indian diplomats were either recalled home for their safety or expelled from Canada following police investigations, depending on whether you are getting the information from Indians or Canadians.
The first thing you notice, though, when you visit the website is the popup that greets you. It says some Indian nationals have been receiving phone calls and emails about job offers and their immigration status from unscrupulous elements claiming to be from the High Commission in Ottawa or consulates in Toronto and Vancouver, but they are impersonators who should be reported to the authorities.
The September 20 statement in the popup counters one of the allegations against the High Commission.
Indian diplomats are alleged to have used violence as well as threatened to deny needed immigration documents to coerce Indians living in Canada to serve as informants against Sikh activists, reports the Washington Post, quoting Canadian officials.
India has “strongly” rejected the allegations as “preposterous imputations”.
US urges India to take it ‘seriously’
America, however, has urged India to take the allegations “seriously”.
“We have made clear that the allegations are extremely serious and they need to be taken seriously. And we wanted to see the government of India cooperate with Canada in its investigation,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters on Tuesday (October 15).
“Obviously, they have not,” he said. “They have chosen an alternate path.”
India, incidentally, faces similar American allegations, which it is taking seriously.
India and Canada have had strained relations since the assassination of a Sikh separatist on Canadian soil. Canada claimed the Indian government was involved in the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar. Nijjar, who emigrated to Canada and became a Canadian citizen, wanted an independent Sikh state called Khalistan to be carved out of India. He was shot dead by two masked gunmen outside a Sikh temple at Surrey, British Columbia, in June 2023.
The United States has alleged an Indian national was involved in a similar, albeit unsuccessful, plot to klll Khalistani separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun In New York.
An Indian national named Nikhil Gupta has been charged in the case. Prosecutors alleged that Gupta was working with an Indian government employee and had agreed to pay an assassin $100,000 to kill Pannun.
Gupta was extradited from the Czech Republic to the US in June.
A high-level Indian inquiry team is visiting the USA to look into the case.
Different responses to US and Canada
Significantly, Delhi didn’t reject the US accusations like the Canadian allegations.
Noting the difference, a columnist in the Canadian The Globe and Mail writes: “New Delhi is taking a much more respectful response to allegations by the United States that an Indian official was involved in an attempted murder of a Sikh activist [in America]…
“It would seem that Canada is the weak kid in the playground being bullied by someone who is, at the same time, being very careful not to offend an even bigger kid.”
The National Post, another Canadian newspaper, says in a front-page report: “[The] diplomatic relations between Canada and India are at the point of no return.”
Recalling the past, the writer Terry Glavin laments: “It’s like 1985 all over again, in the days leading up to the Sikh separatist bombing of Air India Flight 182 off the coast of Ireland, which claimed the lives of 329 people. Ottawa says India is intruding in Canadian affairs. New Delhi says Canada is exporting terrorism to India.”
Punjabi gangs are active in Toronto, Vancouver and Edmonton, and Indian agents are using the crime wave as a cover for their own operations, Glavin says, quoting the police.
Bishnoi gang
Glavin talks about the activities of the Bishnoi gang, which, according to the Canadian police, is working for Indian government agents.
He says:
“One of India’s most powerful criminal warlords, Bishnoi has been in prison for a decade, but Indian police agencies say he still manages to direct his gangland empire from his prison cell. While Ottawa says the Bishnoi group is targeting Canadian Khalistanis, Delhi says that, if anything, the opposite is true.
“Bishnoi’s chief lieutenant, the gangster Goldy Brar, remains at large. Indian police say Brar directs the Bishnoi group’s criminal rackets in India from right here in Canada. Last year, India’s National Investigation Agency filed a charge sheet against Bishnoi, Brar and 12 others for alleged links to Babbar Khalsa International, a listed terrorist organization in Canada.
“It was from its base in Canada that Babbar Khalsa plotted and carried out the 1985 Air India bombing, the worst act of terrorism in aviation history before the events of Sept. 11, 2001. The chief Babbar Khalsa plotter, Talwinder Singh Parmar, had been living unmolested in British Columbia at the time while India was attempting to have him returned to face murder charges. Canada wouldn’t extradite him.”
How Nijjar arrived in Canada
As for Nijjar, whose assassination sparked the diplomatic row, he was twice denied admission to Canada, says the National Post report. It says he arrived in Canada on a forged passport in 1997 and applied for refugee status. When his claim was denied, he re-applied through what immigration authorities determined was a marriage of convenience, and was turned down again. He acquired Canadian citizenship in 2007, said the immigration minister after he was murdered.
Delhi has denied Canadian allegations of involvement in Nijjar’s assassination.
FBI evidence
The National Post report, however, says Canada got the evidence of Indian involvement from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
“The evidence for an Indian intelligence agency hand in Nijjar’s murder comes from a related murder-for-hire plot laid bare in a US Justice Department indictment against Nikhil Gupta, whom an Indian government official allegedly hired to arrange for the murder of Sikhs for Justice leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun.”
No wonder America has asked India to take the allegations seriously.
Delhi’s view is, however, shared by at least one political columnist in Canada. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is playing politics, Tasha Kheiriddin claims, echoing the line taken by India’s Ministry of External Affairs.
“The accusations are appalling, and no country should be targeting the citizens of another on foreign soil. But why are these revelations coming out now?’” asks Kheiriddin,
The timing is convenient for Trudeau, she says. He looked shaky at the weekend when some of his fellow Liberal MPs were reported to be rebelling against him. Then came the police allegations against Indian diplomats on Monday. It gave him a chance to “take to the airwaves and sound all grave and solemn and prime-minister like, defending Canadian sovereignty”.