India Gave Dossier To Trudeau On Sikh Separatists Including Nijjar In 2018 By Keeping Canadian PM's Plane In Air: Report

A report published in The Globe and Mail yesterday (7 May) revealed that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was given a dossier on 10 Sikh separatists, including Hardeep Singh Nijjar, in 2018, five years before Nijjar was killed.

Nijjar was killed in British Columbia's Surrey on 18 June last year and Trudeau publicly accused India of being involved in the killing in September, deteriorating diplomatic relations with India.

However, it has now come to light that the Narendra Modi government has been pressing Trudeau to take legal action against Khalistani terrorists residing in Canada for many years.

The dossier was presented by then-Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh to Trudeau and his then-defence minister Harjit Sajjan by keeping Trudeau's plane in the air before allowing it to land in Punjab.

This was done because the Canadian leaders were avoiding meeting Captain Singh, who had previously called Sajjan's father a terrorist for leading the World Sikh Organisation once.

The Sikh separatists on the list were those, who were demanding secession of a Sikh State from India called Khalistan. The Indian government wanted Canada to curtail their separatist activities.

The same list had earlier been shared with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. The Canadian officials assured India of looking at the list but also asserted nobody would be arrested for expressing views against India.

The report comes after the Canadian Police on 3 May arrested three members of an alleged hit squad who was "tasked by the government of India" for killing Nijjar, while India waits for information on them.

Jaishankar said that he had seen the news of the arrests and said the suspects "apparently are Indians of some kind of gang background... we'll have to wait for the police to tell us".

"But, as I said, one of our concerns which we have been telling them is that, you know, they have allowed organized crime from India, specifically from Punjab, to operate in Canada," Jaishankar reiterated his stance.