OTTAWA: India’s envoy to Canada, who is being expelled over what Ottawa says are links to the murder of a Sikh leader, insisted in an interview he was innocent and said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had wrecked bilateral political ties.

Both countries on Monday ordered out six diplomats in tit-for-tat moves over Ott­awa’s allegations that New Delhi was targeting Indian dissidents on Canadian soil.

Trudeau specifically tied the six to the murder of Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar last year in British Columbia.

Sanjay Kumar Verma, India’s envoy to Canada, told CTV that Trudeau had been relying on intelligence rather than evidence.

“On the basis of intelligence, if you want to destroy a relationship, be my guest. And that’s what he did,” Verma said in an interview broadcast on Sunday.

Indian ex-official indicted by US dismisses allegations, family claims

Asked whether he had anything to do with Nijjar’s murder, Verma said: “Nothing at all. No evidence was presented. (This is) politically motivated.”

Canada is home to the highest population of Sikhs outside their home state of Punjab and demonstrations in favour of a separate homeland carved out of India have irked New Delhi.

Indian ex-official ‘dismisses charges’

An Indian ex-official charged by the US with directing a murder-for-hire plot has dismissed the allegations, his family said, expressing shock that Vikash Yadav was wanted by the FBI.

Yadav, 39, described the claims as false media reports when he spoke to his cousin, Avinash Yadav, the relative said on Saturday in their ancestral village about 100 km from the capital New Delhi.

The US Department of Justice charged Yadav with leading an unsuccessful plot to murder Sikh separatist leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun last year. Yadav was an official of India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) spy service, according to the indictment unsealed on Thursday.

India, which has said it is investigating the allegations, said Yadav is no longer a government employee, without saying whether he had been an intelligence officer.

“The family has no information” about him working for the spy agency, Yadav’s cousin said in the village of Pranpura in Haryana state. “He never mentioned anything about it,” despite the two speaking to each other regularly.

“For us, he is still working for the CRPF,” the federal Central Reserve Police Force, which he joined in 2009, said Avinash Yadav, 28.

“He told us he is deputy commandant” and was trained as a paratrooper.

The cousin said he did not know where Yadav was but that he lived with his wife and a daughter who was born last year.

Indian officials have not commented on Yadav’s whereabouts. The Washington Post, citing American officials, reported on Thursday that Yadav was still in India and that the US was expected to seek his extradition.

His mother, Sudesh Yadav, 65, said she was still in shock. “What can I say? I do not know whether the US government is telling the truth or not.”

The US accuses Yadav of directing another Indian citizen, Nikhil Gupta, who it alleges paid a hitman $15,000, to kill Pannun.

But in Pranpura, Yadav’s cousin pointed to the family’s modest, single-storey house, saying, “Where will so much money come from? Can you see any Audis and Mercedes lined up outside this house?” Most of the village’s nearly 500 families have traditionally sent young men to join the security forces, locals said.

Yadav’s father was an officer with India’s border force till he died in 2007, and his brother works with the police in Haryana, said Avinash Yadav.

Another cousin, Amit Yadav, 41, said Vikash Yadav had been a quiet boy interested in books and athletics and was a national-level marksman.

“Only the government of India and Vikash know what has happened,” he said, adding that Indian officials should inform them.

If the government “abandons” a paramilitary officer, Amit Yadav said, “then who will work for them?” Avinash Yadav said: “We want the Indian government to support us, they should inform us what has happened. Otherwise where will we go?”

Published in Dawn, October 21st, 2024