Friday 18 / October / 2024
Ottawa: Referring to the ongoing diplomatic spat between India and Canada, Canadian security expert Joe Adam George said this "unfortunate crisis" started much earlier than the expulsion of diplomats.
The ties between India and Canada soured after Trudeau alleged in the Canadian Parliament last year that he has "credible allegations" of India's hand in the killing of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
India has denied all the allegations, calling them "absurd" and "motivated" and has accused Canada of giving space to extremist and anti-India elements in their country.
Speaking with ANI, George said, "This unfortunate crisis that we found ourselves today did not start on Monday...It started a lot earlier. It's been several years since the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), which is equivalent of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and National Investigation Agency (NIA) in India, have been investigating a number of criminal activities here in Canada."
"Along the way, they also came across threats to members of the South Asian community. As a result of the investigations, RCMP earlier this year, in February, decided to put together a multi-disciplinary team to investigate these crimes," he added.
The Canadian security expert further asserted that during the investigations, the RCMP found Indian diplomats, including High Commissioner Sanjay Verma's involvement in several activities.
"That's when they decided to take this further forward It was during the course of these investigations that they found the alleged involvement of Indian diplomats, including the High Commissioner Mr Verma, in these activities. That's when they decided to take this further forward and late last week, the deputy commissioner of the RCMP, Mark Flynn, attempted to meet with his Indian law enforcement counterparts. They refused to meet him. So what then transpired was Mr Flynn, along with Canada's national security adviser and the deputy minister of foreign affairs, decided to meet with officials of the government of India."
The differences between both nations escalated, with Canada labelling Sanjay Verma and other diplomats as "persons of interest" in the investigation of Nijjar's death.
India on Monday expelled six Canadian diplomats hours after it summoned Canada's Charge d'Affaires Stewart Wheeler and conveyed that the "baseless targeting" of the Indian High Commissioner and other diplomats and officials in Canada was completely unacceptable.
MEA said earlier that it was underlined to the Canada's Charge d'Affaires that in an atmosphere of extremism and violence, the Trudeau Government's actions endangered their safety and the government had decided to withdraw India's High Commissioner to Canada Sanjay Kumar Verma and other targeted diplomats and officials.
On being asked about Canadian PM Trudeau's testimony, George said, "Him admitting that he did not exactly share hard evidentiary proof with India at that time, at least, was rather interesting. It just goes to show that, the question is the rationale for having gone public with the accusation that India was behind the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar...We do not know, it's unclear whether Canada has since shared more evidence with India. I think time will tell."
Earlier on Wednesday, Trudeau had said that his government had not provided India with hard evidence but just intelligence regarding the killing of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil.
Testifying at Canada's foreign interference inquiry, Trudeau said India has been insisting on evidence over allegations levelled by Canada.
"Behind the scenes (were trying) India to co-operate with us. Their ask was...give us the evidence you have on us. Our response was it is within your security agency. You should be looking into how much they know, you should be engaging... 'No, no but show us the evidence'. At that point, it was primarily intelligence, not hard evidentiary proof. So we said let's work together...," he said.
