Months after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused the Indian government of plotting a murder on Canadian soil – plunging diplomatic relations between the two countries to their lowest level ever – the first arrests in connection with the assassination , which occurred on Friday, did not make it possible to demystify its foundations. of his claim.
Police have provided no clues or presented any evidence that India orchestrated the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh nationalist leader who was gunned down at the temple he led in Surrey, British Columbia, in June . What they said was that three indian men had committed the murder and that an investigation into India’s role was underway.
Before the arrests, Indian officials said Canada was trying to draw New Delhi into what it described as essentially a rivalry between gangs whose members had long been wanted for crimes committed in India.
After the arrests, a report from CBC, Canada’s public broadcasting corporationrelying on anonymous sources, also said that the suspects belonged to an Indian criminal gang.
But analysts and former officials have said a gang’s possible role in the killing does not necessarily mean the Indian government was not involved in the crime.
India’s external spy agency, the Research and Analysis Wing, or RAW, has long been suspected of exploiting criminal networks to conduct operations in its immediate neighborhood in South Asia, while maintaining denial.
Canada’s accusation, if proven, that India orchestrated the murder of Nijjar – and a similar accusation made soon after by the United States in another case – could suggest that RAW is now expanding its strategy of working with criminals to carry out operations in Western countries, analysts said.
U.S. officials have produced strong evidence in their accusation that an Indian government agent participated in a foiled assassination attempt a dual American and Canadian nationality. And Canada and allied officials have argued that Canada has evidence supporting Mr. Trudeau’s claim that Indian agents carried out Mr. Nijjar’s killing.
But Canada’s failure to reveal any evidence of India’s involvement, nine months after Mr. Trudeau’s explosive allegation, leaves Mr. Nijjar’s killing in the realm of accusations and counter-accusations in a very tense political environment in both countries. » said the analysts.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi flexed his muscles as a nationalist strongman, running for his current campaign for a third term in power as a protector of India, who would go as far as necessary to target security threats.
During his speeches, he boasted about how his government eliminates its enemies by “descending into their homes.” Although he made these references to the country’s archenemy Pakistan, right-wing social media accounts celebrated Mr. Nijjar’s killing in Canada as a similar reach of Mr. Modi’s long arm.
Mr. Trudeau, on the other hand, has been criticized for his weakness on Chinese policies. election interference activities on Canadian soil, and the fact that he preempted Nijjar’s murder was seen as compensation for that.
Canadian police announced Friday that they arrested the three Indians in Edmonton, Alberta, the same day and charged them with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit the murder of Mr. Nijjar. The suspects had lived in Canada for three to five years but were not permanent residents of Canada, police said.
The gang CBC talked about The hitmen linked to are led by Lawrence Bishnoi, 31, who is accused of several cases of murder, extortion and drug trafficking. He orchestrated much of it from an Indian prison, where he was detained since 2014. Its members are believed to be behind the murder of a popular Punjabi rapper and threats of attacks on Bollywood celebrities.
Indian security officials have frequently arrested criminals linked to Mr. Bishnoi, often with allegations that the gang’s network extended into Canada and overlapped with those promoting from Canadian soil the cause of Khalistan, a movement once deeply violent separatist in an attempt to carve out a niche for itself. the Indian state of Punjab as an independent nation.
A significant Sikh diaspora resides in Canada, many of whom emigrated there after a violent and often indiscriminate crackdown by the Indian government in the 1980s against the movement for an independent Khalistan. Although this cause has largely died out in India, it continues to find supporters among certain segments of the diaspora. The Indian government has accused Canada and several other Western countries of not doing enough to suppress separatists.
Analysts and former security officials said that in India’s immediate geographical neighborhood, RAW was often willing to venture into dark spaces to recruit killers. Senior officials in Mr. Modi’s administration, including Ajit Doval, the renowned former spymaster who is now his longtime national security adviser, have been accused in the past of penetrating the criminal underworld to find hitmen ready to attack targets inside the country. as well as abroad.
Mr. Bishnoi has displayed enormous power behind bars, even giving a television interview from prison last year to present himself as a nationalist warrior rather than a criminal mastermind. This, a former security official said, was a sign that he was trying to align himself with the spirit of nationalism for a possible deal.
“I am a nationalist,” Mr. Bishnoi said in this interview. “I am against Khalistan. I am against Pakistan.
Ajai Sahni, a security analyst who runs the South Asia Terrorism Portal in New Delhi, said the exploitation of criminal gangs by spy agencies to carry out deniability operations was something that “happens around the world “.
“It is entirely possible for agencies like RAW to use gang rivalries instead of exposing their own covert operators,” Sahni added. “But just because that’s generally how one would expect it to happen doesn’t mean we know that’s exactly the case in the Nijjar murder case.”
The failed plot on American soil had some of the botched hallmarks of an agency trying to expand an old playbook into a different, unfamiliar space.
A U.S. indictment in November presented evidence including electronic communications and cash transactions between the hitman — who turned out to be an undercover cop — a boastful middleman and a An Indian intelligence official who the Washington Post recently identified as Vikram Yadav.
The Indian government’s response sparked concern: India’s top diplomat said the action did not constitute government policy, while the government announced an investigation into the matter and promised to cooperate with the United States.
The Canadian case played out very differently. The country has not publicly disclosed any evidence supporting Mr. Trudeau’s claims, although allied officials said in September that Canadian officials had found “smoking gun”: intercepted communications from Indian diplomats in Canada indicating their involvement in the conspiracy.
Indian officials pushed back against Mr. Trudeau’s claims with the kind of aggressiveness that suggested either they were not involved or were confident in their denial.
Indian government Canadian diplomats expelledand doubled down on his efforts by releasing a list of individuals on Canadian soil who he said had long been wanted in connection with what he described as a link between crime and terrorism.
Last week, officials from Mr. Modi’s government jumped onstage at an event Mr. Trudeau attended to say it showed his accusations were simply aimed at appeasing what they say is a Sikh vote bank for him. They pointed to videos of an event where Mr. Trudeau was the chief guest and chants of “Long live Khalistan” were chanted. Mr. Trudeau, in his speech, said he will always be there “to protect your rights and freedoms, and we will always defend your community against hatred.”
After the speech, the Indian Foreign Ministry summoned the second Canadian diplomat to New Delhi to file a complaint.
“His remarks once again illustrate the kind of political space that has been given in Canada to separatism, extremism and people who practice violence,” said Randhir Jaiswal, a spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs, during a press conference.
