Hardeep Singh Nijjar, the chief of the banned Khalistan Tiger Force (KTF) and one of India’s most-wanted terrorists was shot dead by two unidentified gunmen outside a gurdwara in Surrey in the western Canadian province of British Columbia on 18 June this year. Months after his death, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have alleged that the Indian government was behind the killing of Nijjar, 45. India had designated Nijjar as a terrorist in 2020.
On the killing, India has rejected the allegations and called it “absurd” and “motivated” and expelled a senior Canadian diplomat in a tit-for-tat move to Ottawa’s expulsion of an Indian official. India has also asked Canada to crack down on terrorists and anti-India elements operating from its soil and suspended visa services for Canadians.
Report have now emerged that Pakistan’s spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was responsible for killing Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada in order to strain India Canada ties, sources has said as reported by India Today. Other sources also told CNN-News18 that the two ISI plants in Canada, Rahat Rao and Tariq Kiyani, were given the task of killing Nijjar due to business reasons or to get more cuts from new people. According to the sources, two sought to kill Nijjar in order to take control of drugs and immigration business, as reported by the daily.
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Another report have also stated that Nijjar was in touch with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and had met senior officials just six days before he was killed, his son claimed as reported by CNN-News18.
Sources told CNN-News18 that his son Balraj Singh had also claimed that that his father was meeting CSIS officials since February this year and was also suppose to meet them two days after he was killed on 18 June. According to sources, the Indian Intelligence agencies also wondered as to why Nijjar wasn’t provided close proximity protection since reliable intelligence was available against Indian spies, further adding that, this demonstrated in some capacity that Canada too assisted ISI and provided access to Nijjar’s murders. They also claimed that the Khalistani sympathiser was exceedingly careful and guarded, making close approach impossible without someone Nijjar knew.
Meanwhile, Indian agencies had informed the Canadian government about all his terrorist activities and how he fled to Canada in 1997 but Canada did not take any action. Nijjar had applied for asylum in Canada claiming that he feared persecution in India because he belonged to ‘a particular social group’, reported PTI citing sources, adding Nijjar’s asylum was rejected on grounds of fabricated narrative. Later, Nijjar went to Canada in 1997 using a counterfeit passport under the alias Ravi Sharma.
When his asylum was rejected, Nijjar entered into a ‘marriage’ agreement with a woman who sponsored his immigration. And all this happened just 11 days after his first claim was rejected.
Earlier, National Investigation Agency (NIA) had shared details about Khalistani terrorist Gurpatwant Pannun who “wants to create many countries by dividing India.” The NIA document said that Pannun challenged the unity and integrity of India through his audio messages. Pannun wants a separate country for Punjabis named Khalistan, a country for Muslims named ‘Democratic Republic of Urdustan’, and a nation for the people of Kashmir
Since Trudeau’s allegations, a spiraling diplomatic crisis began as Canada asserted that it had human and signal intelligence behind its allegations. A CBC report had said the intelligence included communications involving Indian officials, among them Indian diplomats present in Canada, adding that some of the intelligence was provided by an unidentified ally in the Five Eyes alliance. Five Eyes is an intelligence-sharing network that includes the US, the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Source : Mint
