External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has said that India was willing to look into it if Canada provides relevant information on the killing of Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar. The EAM cleared New Delhi's stance on the recent issue at a Council on Foreign Relations event in New York on Tuesday.
"One, we told the Canadians that this is not the government of India's policy," he said. "Two, we told the Canadians saying that look, if you have something specific, if you have something relevant, you know, let us know - we are open to looking at it," Jaishankar said when queried about Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's allegations that India had orchestrated the killing of Nijjar in Canadian soil.
New Delhi claims that Canada has yet to provide any public evidence to support the claim about the slaying of Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
He added that India had been badgering the Canadians about the organised criminals based there, making "a large number of extradition requests."
"The picture is not complete without the context," he added. "In the last few years, Canada actually has seen a lot of organized crime, relating to the secessionist forces, organised crime, violence and extremism. They’re all very, very deeply mixed up. So in fact, we have been talking about specifics and information. We have given them a lot of information about organised crime and leadership, which operates out of Canada. There are a large number of extradition requests. There are terrorist leaders, who have been identified," he said.
Jaishankar also mentioned the threats to Indian diplomats and attacks on Indian consulates, stating that these are "very permissive" because of political reasons.
"Our concern is that it’s really been very permissive, because of political reasons. So we have a situation where our diplomats are threatened, our consulates have been attacked…A lot of this is often justified, as saying that’s how democracies work. If somebody gives me something specific, it doesn’t have to be restricted to Canada. But if there’s any incident which is an issue and somebody gives me something specific, as a government, I would look at it," Jaishankar added.
On whether the Five Eyes alliance shared intelligence on the killing of Nijjar, Jaishankar reiterated that India did not receive any specific information. Replying to the question of a journalist on whether the FBI has told US Sikh leaders that there are threats, Jaishankar said, "I am not part of the Five Eyes. I am not certainly part of the FBI. So you are asking the wrong person."
