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Former Indian High Commissioner to Canada Sanjay Kumar Verma said former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was "ill-advised" to publicly raise allegations linking India to the killing of Khalistani Separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, adding that the move put a strong bilateral relationship under strain.
Verma's remarks come after the Canadian National Police Chief, Mike Duheme, said that there is currently no evidence linking the Indian state to the Nijjar case, an issue that had triggered a major diplomatic rift between India and Canada. Commenting on Trudeau's earlier statement about "credible allegation", Verma said the decision to raise the issue publicly had been misguided. "He was ill-advised. The timing was of his choosing, but he was ill-advised to put a very strong bilateral relationship on hold and move ahead with his political, I would say, motives," Verma said. Elaborating on the issue of "credible allegations," he questioned the lack of evidence and legal action. "So let's try to sort of dissect that. And if we say credible allegations, it was still not evidence. But due to some reason, the then Prime Minister thought it appropriate to state that in their own parliament. I did not consider it well thought of on his part," Verma said. "But then moving ahead, even RCMP [Royal Canadian Mounted Police] in October 2024 said that they have credible evidence linking transnational repression and crime with Indian agents and proxies. Now even that has failed. Now my only question to those who had leveled these charges is if there was such a clinching evidence, why the charges have not been filed so far? So I look at it both from the logical point of view as well as from the international law point of view," he added. He added that India had consistently maintained that the accusations were politically motivated and lacked evidence. "We always maintained that. If you recall, both from New Delhi and from Ottawa, the Indian interests, the Indian representation, always talked about this. We always said that this is politically motivated, we always said that this is vote-bank politics, we always said that there is no evidence available to say so," he said. Explaining the recent development, Verma said Canadian authorities had treated the issue in two separate categories. "When I look at it, what he said, let's be very clear what he said first. So he has kept it in two different buckets. One bucket is the Khalistani terrorist who was killed there. And another bucket is transnational repression and transnational crimes. So these are two buckets," he said. According to Verma, the first issue is already before the Canadian courts. "So when you look at the first bucket, so there is a court case already on, charges have been filed against four Indian nationals. These four Indian nationals went to Canada as international students. God knows what happened in the society, and they became whatever they have been alleged to have become. And their trial is on," he said. On the broader accusations of transnational repression, Verma reiterated India's long-standing policy. "I always said it is not India's policy to interfere in the internal affairs of any other country. Unfortunately, this was not accepted by the regime of that particular point of time," he said. Referring to the recent police statement, he said investigators currently see no link between India and alleged transnational crimes. "What he (Canada National Police Chief) said was that right now he doesn't see any link with any foreign entity, which includes India, I'm sure, any foreign entity having links with transnational crimes and transnational repression in Canada," Verma said. (ANI)
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