Washington and Ottawa should adopt a tougher stance against the government of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for attempting to silence dissidents on foreign soil, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a Sikh separatist leader who was the target of an alleged murder plot last year and is labeled a terrorist by New Delhi, has said in an interview with Reuters.
Pannun claimed that Indian diplomatic missions in the US and Canada were running a “spy network,” although he did not provide any details or evidence to support this assertion. “The US and Canada need to put their foot down; regimes like Modi’s should not be allowed to come to America or Canada, challenge their sovereignty, and get away with it. They need to close the consulates permanently,” he told Reuters.
Pannun leads Sikhs for Justice, an organization advocating for Khalistan, a proposed Sikh homeland carved out of India’s Punjab state. This group is among several Khalistan outfits banned by the Indian government that primarily operate outside India in countries with significant Sikh diasporas.
The US Justice Department has unsealed indictments against two Indian nationals in connection with a plot to kill Pannun, who holds dual US-Canadian citizenship, in New York. One of the accused is former Indian official Vikash Yadav, who, according to the indictment, worked as an intelligence officer at the time and orchestrated the assassination plan.
Pannun described Yadav as merely a “middle-tier soldier” tasked with organizing the assassination.
This alleged plot has been linked to the murder of another prominent Sikh separatist activist, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, in Canada. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government has accused Indian agents of being behind the murder. Earlier this month, Canadian police implicated six Indian diplomats, including a high commissioner, in the case. These allegations, which New Delhi has denied, sparked a deep diplomatic rift, resulting in both countries expelling a number of each other’s diplomats.
While India has constituted a special panel to investigate the alleged plot against Pannun, it has repeatedly stated that Canada has not provided any evidence to support its allegations. Meanwhile, Indian officials have accused both Ottawa and Washington of “harboring” terrorists on their soil and ignoring India’s security concerns and extradition requests.