India is willing to cooperate with the US investigation into the alleged thwarted assassination attempt on India-designated terrorist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun but not Canada's probe into the killing of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar due to a disparity in the information both nations shared in their investigation, India's High Commissioner to Canada Sanjay Kumar Verma has said.
Verma told Canadian media CTV that US authorities have shared more specific information regarding the investigation with India than Canada has. The envoy stressed this could be the reason why India's cooperation differs in both cases.
While Canada stated it had evidence that the Indian government was involved in the killing of Nijjar, New Delhi repeatedly denied the claims and stressed that Canada was yet to share evidence in this regard.
The US probe stems from the recent report that appeared in UK-based Financial Times that said the US thwarted a plan to allegedly assassinate Pannun on American soil. The report added that the US had informed India of its concerns regarding the alleged plot to kill Pannun.
Verma reiterated that India was "absolutely" and "decidedly" not involved in Nijjar's killing. He added that his understanding is that Indian authorities are cooperating in the American investigation as they have been presented with "inputs which are legally presentable."
"One is that the investigation in the case of the US, as far as I know and understand, because again, I don't oversee India-US relations is at a much-advanced stage. And therefore, I presume that there would be better information shared within India," he told CTV News.
"Those inputs are a nexus between gangsters, drug peddlers, terrorists, and gun runners in the US, and there is a belief that some of the Indian connections - now when I say Indian connections, I don't mean Government of India connections, there's 1.4 billion people. Because we have got inputs, which are legally presentable," he said.
On whether Canada's national security advisor shared inputs related to allegations, Verma said, "Until the time it is not specific or relevant to the case, we will not be able to respond to it. There could be a lot of conversation. Conversations could have allegations, conversations could have some facts of the case, but allegations and facts do not make it specific and relevant."
"So we need to have those facts. And we are always ready to do that. If you look at the most recent incident where there are some allegations put out in one of the newspapers against India, the US did provide us with inputs. And we have already started following up on that," he told CTV News.
The envoy added that the topic did come up during Canada's National Security Adviser's visit to India. However, India cannot conduct or join an investigation until it gets "something specific and relevant to go back to our legal authorities to seek permission to do an investigation."
"So until the time that those kinds of inputs are not there, in a country of rule of law, it will not be possible for us to move forward on the investigations."
