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“Will reveal evidence in similar fashion as U.S.,” says Trudeau
Justin Trudeau said he spoke about India’s involvement in Nijjar’s killing, in Parliament, after a period of “quiet diplomacy.”
Justin Trudeau / X/@JustinTrudeau
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau revealed that the government has plans to reveal evidence against India regarding Hardeep Singh Nijjar’s assassination, in a similar fashion as the U.S. did with Gurpatwant Singh Pannun’s thwarted assassination.
The PM said they will do so when “we reach those points in the investigation,” in a year-end interview with the Canadian press.
Nijjar, a Canadian national was assassinated on June 18 in Surrey, Vancouver. He was a designated terrorist in India, and a Khalistani leader. Three months after he was killed, Trudeau appeared in the House of Commons and alleged that India was potentially involved in his assassination.
The allegations were rubbished by India’s Ministry of External Affairs as “politically motivated.” India and Canada have been tied in a diplomatic row ever since.
In November end, the U.S. charged an Indian national with murder for hire after a foiled assassination plot of Khalistani. The indictment unsealed in a court said Nikhil Gupta along with an Indian government official identified only as “CC-1”, plotted to kill Pannun on American soil. The indictment by the Department of Justice also mentioned Nijjar’s assassination.
In the recent interview with the press, Trudeau revealed that his statement in parliament came after a period of “quiet diplomacy.” He said the reason why he made the allegations against India in Parliament was to ensure Canadians, who were worried after Nijjar’s assassination, that the government was on top of things.
“We felt that all the quiet diplomacy and all the measures that we put in needed a further level of deterrence…And therefore put a chill on them continuing or considering doing anything like this,” he was quoted as saying.
Trudeau also branded India’s actions as “comical” in the wake of the allegations in parliament. India had temporarily suspended visas for Canadian nationals, and sent over 40 diplomats back to Canada citing “interference in internal matters.”
“They chose to attack us and undermine us with a scale of misinformation and disinformation in their media that was comical,” the PM said.
“(It) would have been more comical had it not had real implications for peoples' lives and relations between our two countries that are so deep in terms of people-to-people ties, and people depending on the flow of connections between us,” he added.
India has maintained that they are open to extending the same cooperation to Canada in Nijjar’s assassination, as the U.S. in their investigation of Pannun’s assassination plot. India said they need to see relevant information and evidence from Canada to work with them.
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