New Delhi: The United States on Thursday (August 1) reiterated that it continues to expect “accountability” from India on the alleged involvement of an Indian government official in the attempted killing of an American citizen on US territory.
At a briefing in Washington, DC, US state department spokesperson Vedant Patel said: “As we have said before, we continue to expect accountability from the government of India in relation to the alleged role of an Indian government employee and the failed attempt to assassinate a US citizen on US soil that occurred last summer”.
“We continue to raise our concerns directly with the Indian government at senior levels,” Patel continued to say.
The US’s reiteration of the need for India to take action came against the backdrop of a recent report that Canada had arrested five men, including an Indian citizen named Amandeep Singh, on firearms charges one day before a wedding where lawyer and Khalistan supporter Gurpatwant Singh Pannun was invited to was scheduled to take place in the same city they were arrested in.
US prosecutors alleged in November last year that another Indian citizen named Nikhil Gupta had, at the behest of an official in the Indian government, attempted to hire a hitman to kill a US citizen who is widely believed to be Pannun and who the Indian government proscribed as a Khalistani terrorist.
They also alleged that the unnamed Indian government official in question shared with Gupta a video of the lifeless body of Hardeep Singh Nijjar – whom the Indian government also proscribed as a Khalistani terrorist – soon after he was killed in Canada in June last year.
Canada has been investigating the killing of Nijjar, who was a Canadian citizen. In September last year, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in his country’s parliament that there were “credible allegations” that Indian government agents may have been involved in Nijjar’s murder.
Canadian police have arrested four Indian men in connection with Nijjar’s murder, including Amandeep Singh, who was apprehended a day before the wedding that Pannun was expected to attend, CBC reported. Pannun ended up skipping the wedding at the last minute.
Neither the Indian citizen nor others have been charged with anything relating to the wedding, but there has been speculation that given the timing of their arrest, there is a possibility that Pannun may have been a target.
After Trudeau publicly made his allegations, Indo-Canadian relations froze over. India rejected his allegations, recalled 41 Canadian diplomats and halted visa services for Canadian nationals.
But in response to the US allegations, India set up a “high-level enquiry committee” to investigate the matter – as it turned out, it did this even before the indictment was made public.
No information has been made public about who is part of this committee, or what – if any – progress it has made.
Nikhil Gupta, the Indian accused by the US of hiring a hitman to kill Pannun, was arrested in the Czech Republic in June last year and was extradited to the US in June this year. He is in a federal detention centre in New York City.
Security officials and diplomats from India and Canada, including Canada’s intelligence chief, have met several times in recent weeks to discuss Nijjar’s murder, a report in the Hindustan Times said on Wednesday.
