INDIAN High Commissioner in Ottawa, Sanjay Kumar Verma, told CTV last weekend that India had been “convicted” of killing Khalistani advocate Hardeep Singh Nijjar last June in Surrey even before the investigations into the case could be concluded.
“There is no specific or relevant information for us to look into,” he told CTV’s Question Period host Vassy Kapelos.
In contrast, he said that the U.S. provided India “inputs and we have already started following up on that.”
He added: “Those inputs are nexus between gangsters, drug peddlers, terrorists and gun runners in the US and there is a belief that some of the Indian connections – now whereas the Indian connections are not Government of India connections — India is 1.4 billion people — so some of the India connections are there. We are ready to investigate because we have got inputs which are legally presentable.”
When Kapelos asked Verma if by “inputs” he meant documents or intelligence, he said that he didn’t oversee India-US relations and his mandate was relations with Canada. He added that he could only read out India’s statement on the matter:
“During the course of recent discussions on India-US security cooperation, the US side shared some inputs pertaining to nexus between organized criminals, gun runners, terrorists and others. The inputs are a cause of concern for both countries and they decided to take necessary follow-up action. On its part, India takes such inputs seriously since it impinges on our own national security interests as well. Issues in the context of US inputs are already being examined by relevant departments in India.”
Verma told CTV: “The investigation in case of the US as far as I know and understand — because again I don’t oversee US India relations — is at much advanced stage and therefore I presume that there would be better information shared with India.”
Verma pointed out that Canada’s “credible” allegation was only an allegation, and insisted that “there was no [Indian] government hand in the shooting of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil…we are a country of the rule of law.”
Verma said: “Even without the investigation being concluded, India was convicted,” noting that India’s interpretation of the terminology “cooperate” that Canada used was very different.
He said: “We always said that if there is anything specific and relevant and communicated to us, we’ll look into it.”
However, Verma said that the Canada-India relationship was better than it was a couple of months ago and there was more and more dialogue between the two countries.
He said that the core issue remains that some Canadian citizens are using Canadian soil to launch attacks on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of India which is against any international law. From this core issue a lot of security concerns come up and those security concerns are being taken care of to some extent and Indian diplomats “feel relatively safer.”
